Scalable memory system protocol supporting programmable number of levels of indirection

ABSTRACT

A memory device includes a memory component that stores data and a processor. The processor may receive requests from a requesting component to perform a plurality of data operations, generate a plurality of packets associated with the plurality of data operations, and continuously transmit each of the plurality of packets until each of the plurality of packets are transmitted. Each of the plurality of packets after the first packet of the plurality of packets is transmitted on a subsequent clock cycle immediately after a previous packet is transmitted.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION

This application is a Divisional of U.S. application Ser. No.16/208,035, entitled “Scalable Memory System Protocol SupportingProgrammable Number of Levels of Indirection,” and filed on Dec. 3,2018, now U.S. Pat. No. 11,003,363, issued on May 11, 2021, which claimspriority to and is a Continuation of U.S. application Ser. No.15/666,410, entitled “Systems and Methods for Packing Data In a ScalableMemory System Protocol,” and filed on Aug. 1, 2017, now U.S. Pat. No.10,540,104, issued on Jan. 21, 2020, which claims priority to and is aDivisional of U.S. application Ser. No. 14/724,473, entitled “Systemsand Methods for Packing Data In a Scalable Memory System Protocol,” andfiled on May 28, 2015, now U.S. Pat. No. 9,747,048, issued on Aug. 29,2017, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No.62/006,668, entitled “Systems and Methods for a Scalable Memory SystemProtocol,” filed Jun. 2, 2014, each which is herein incorporated byreference herein in its entirety for all purposes. This application isalso related to U.S. patent application Ser. No. 14/172,558, entitled“Systems and Methods for Improving Efficiencies of a Memory System,”filed May 28, 2015, which is also herein incorporated by referenceherein in its entirety for all purposes.

BACKGROUND 1. Field of the Invention

The present disclosure is generally related to a memory system protocolused for performing data operations (e.g., read, write) using memorydevices. More specifically, the present disclosure is related to apacket-based scalable protocol that enables a number of memory andprocessing combinations, provides bit-efficient data transferoperations, and is concordant with a variety of bus types (e.g.,electrical, optical).

2. Description of the Related Art

This section is intended to introduce the reader to various aspects ofart that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure,which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed tobe helpful in providing the reader with background information tofacilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the presentdisclosure. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statementsare to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.

Conventional protocols generally transmit packets between memory deviceswith relatively low failure rates as compared with their predecessors.However, as industries aim to minimize the amount of energy involved inmoving packets of data between memory devices and other components, itis desirable to use protocols that efficiently move packets of datausing a minimal amount of energy, while maintaining the integrity of thepacket transmission.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Various aspects of this disclosure may better be understood upon readingthe following detailed description and upon reference to the drawings inwhich:

FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of an example of a computing system,in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 2 illustrates a block diagram of an example of a memory devicewhich may be part of the computing system of FIG. 1 , in accordance withan embodiment;

FIG. 3 illustrates a packet level view of a packet that may betransmitted within the computing system of FIG. 1 , in accordance withan embodiment;

FIG. 4 illustrates a detailed packet level view of the packet that maybe transmitted within the computing system of FIG. 1 , in accordancewith an embodiment;

FIG. 5 illustrates a flow chart of a method for assigning transactionwindows for various types of memories that are part of the memory deviceof FIG. 2 , in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 6 illustrates an example of a two-stage response for high latencyread operations, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 7 illustrates an example of a one-stage response for high latencydirect memory access operation, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 8 illustrates a lane packing example in which a scalable protocolpacks two 18-bit requests together, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 9 illustrates a flow chart of a method for generating a packet fortransmission, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 10 illustrates a block diagram depicting a number of packets thatmay be transmitted according to the lane packing scheme, in accordancewith an embodiment;

FIG. 11 illustrates a flow chart of a method for receiving packetsaccording to the lane packing scheme, in accordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 12 illustrates a flow chart of a method for reordering operationsthat are performed by a component receiving packets, in accordance withan embodiment;

FIG. 13 illustrates a block diagram showing how packets are reorderedwith reference to the method of FIG. 12 , in accordance with anembodiment;

FIG. 14 illustrates a flow chart of another method for reorderingoperations that are performed by a component receiving packets, inaccordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 15 illustrates a flow chart of a method for throttling back thetransmission rate of requests sent from a transmitting component, inaccordance with an embodiment;

FIG. 16 illustrates a graph that depicts a linear throttle-back curve,in accordance with an embodiment; and

FIG. 17 illustrates a graph that depicts a non-linear throttle-backcurve, in accordance with an embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF SPECIFIC EMBODIMENTS

One or more specific embodiments will be described below. In an effortto provide a concise description of these embodiments, not all featuresof an actual implementation are described in the specification. Itshould be appreciated that in the development of any such actualimplementation, as in any engineering or design project, numerousimplementation-specific decisions must be made to achieve thedevelopers' specific goals, such as compliance with system-related andbusiness-related constraints, which may vary from one implementation toanother. Moreover, it should be appreciated that such a developmenteffort might be complex and time consuming, but would nevertheless be aroutine undertaking of design, fabrication, and manufacture for those ofordinary skill having the benefit of this disclosure.

Scalable Memory System Protocol

As will be discussed in detail below, the present disclosure generallyrelates to scalable memory system protocol. That is, the scalable memorysystem protocol may adjust certain operations based on characteristicsof the data packets (e.g., requests, responses) being transferred. Inone embodiment, the scalable memory system protocol (“scalableprotocol”) may be a packet-based protocol that enables an efficient(e.g., power efficient, bit efficient) transmittal of packets of databetween memory devices, computing devices, and the like. The scalableprotocol may be implemented in a number of combinations with varioustypes of memory and processors such as Automata processors, aProcessor-in-Memory, network devices, storage appliances, hierarchicalmemory, abstracted memory, and the like. As used herein, processors mayinclude any suitable processor capable of performing executableinstructions on a corresponding electrical device. The scalable protocolmay also facilitate a broad range of devices including data centerswitches/routers, network routers, mobile devices, storage devices,Automata processors, Stream processors, processor-in-memory,work-moving-processors, Big Data, Big Graph, secure memory, virtualnetwork, general abstracted memory (e.g., Dynamic Random-Access Memory(DRAM), NAND, and emerging memories), and the like.

In certain embodiments, the scalable protocol may be designed tofacilitate communication of data packets between various memory andprocessors while maintaining a lowest reasonable scalable protocoloverhead. In other words, the scalable protocol may be designed toprovide a bit efficient transfer of data packets in that most, if notall, bits transferred via the scalable protocol are directly part of acorresponding data packet being transmitted. For instance, as will bediscussed in more detail below, the scalable protocol may enable requestpackets to be packed together without padding a signal with zerosunrelated to the respective packets, thereby maximizing a bit efficiencyof data packets being transferred via transmission lanes of a bus.

In addition to providing a bit-efficient mechanism to transfer datapackets, the scalable protocol may be concordant with a number of bustypes, such as electrical or optical buses. Moreover, the scalableprotocol may be capable of providing various operations with regard tothe respective bus including encoding, lane counting, channel counting,speed, style, instantiation count of a system, and the like.

Scalable Protocol

Keeping the foregoing in mind, the scalable protocol may be optimized toprovide for successful transactions such that packet failures are rare(e.g., <1e-6). The scalable protocol may also provide a careful tradeoffbetween packet transmission types, sizes, and a number of differentpacket sizes that may be handled.

As discussed above, industries are more focused on minimizing datamovement energy. That is, the energy consumed moving data packetsbetween memory devices should be minimized. As such, the scalableprotocol may, within reason, eliminate certain bits and messages thatmay be discerned from other bits or messages or may otherwise beunnecessary. For example, the scalable protocol may obviate the need fora device to transmit data related to information that may already beknown to the receiver.

Moreover, to provide efficient data movement operations, the scalableprotocol may facilitate transactions that are “sent to the memory.” Thescalable protocol may also transfer local operations, where internaldata flow is relatively low as compared to external control operations,with the external control operations. Furthermore, the scalable protocolmay implement an error control strategy that minimizes overhead using adynamic field size that adjusts based on the amount of data (e.g.,payload) being transmitted in the respective packet.

The scalable protocol may also be designed to use a minimum number offields to convey data. As such, the scalable protocol may allow fieldsize tuning and flexibility since every packet may not make use of allavailable fields.

The scalable protocol may also be designed to facilitate the coexistenceof low-latency and high-latency data. For example, the scalable protocolmay provide the ability to interlace the transmittal of low-latency databetween the transmittal high-latency data.

The design of the scalable protocol may be characterized as simple andgeneric in that the variable packet size may be determined in a singlefield of the respective packet. Further, the scalable protocol maymaintain simplicity in terms of its operations while remaining capableof performing complex transactions and operations. In addition, thescalable protocol may be flexible enough to enable future functions thatit may not currently be designed to provide.

In certain embodiments, the scalable protocol may limit the order inwhich packets are sent using local ordering schemes. That is, thescalable protocol may not enforce certain global synchronizationordering rules or the like. To stay true to the notion that the scalableprotocol remains abstract, the scalable protocol may facilitateoperations with a special device or with different types of channelproperties.

Keeping the foregoing in mind, the present disclosure describes a numberof systems and techniques that may be implemented within the scalableprotocol to provide for the aforementioned advantages. Although certainsystems or techniques detailed below are described independently withrespect to other systems or techniques, it should be noted that each ofthe systems and techniques described herein may be implemented withvarious other systems and techniques also described herein.

Computing and Memory Systems Using the Scalable Protocol

Turning now to the drawings, FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of acomputing system 10 that may employ various techniques and systemsdescribed herein. The computing system 10 may be any of a variety ofcomputing devices, such as a computer, pager, cellular phone, personalorganizer, control circuit, etc. The computing system 10 may include ahost system on chip (SoC) 12 that may be coupled to a number of memorydevices 14. The host SoC 12 may be an integrated circuit (IC) thatintegrates all components of a computer or other electronic system intoa single chip. As such, the host SoC 12 may include one or moreprocessors, such as a microprocessor, that may control the processing ofsystem functions and requests in the computing system 10.

As mentioned above, the host SoC 12 may be coupled to the memory devices14. In certain embodiments, the host SoC 12 may be coupled to the memorydevices 14 via channels 16. The channels 16 may include buses,electrical wiring, or the like.

FIG. 2 depicts a block diagram of an embodiment of the memory device 14.The memory device 14 may include any storage device designed to retaindigital data. The memory device 14 may encompass a wide variety ofmemory components including volatile memory and non-volatile memory.Volatile memory may include Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM) and/orStatic Random Access Memory (SRAM). Moreover, the volatile memory mayinclude a number of memory modules, such as single inline memory modules(SIMMs) or dual inline memory modules (DIMMs).

The non-volatile memory may include a read-only memory (ROM), such as anEPROM, and/or flash memory (e.g., NAND) to be used in conjunction withthe volatile memory. Additionally, the non-volatile memory may include ahigh capacity memory such as a tape or disk drive memory. As will beappreciated, the volatile memory or the non-volatile memory may beconsidered a non-transitory tangible machine-readable medium for storingcode (e.g., instructions).

As shown in FIG. 2 , in certain embodiments, the memory device 14 mayinclude a system on chip (SoC) 22 that may be any suitable processor,such as a processor-in-memory (PIM) or a computer processor (CPU),tightly coupled to the memory components stored on the memory device 14.Generally, the memory SoC 22 may be on the same silicon chip as thememory components of the memory device 14. By merging the processing andmemory components into the memory device 14, the memory SoC 22 maymanage the manner in which data requests and responses are transmittedand received between the memory components and the host SoC 12. Incertain embodiments, the memory SoC 22 may control the traffic betweenthe memory components to reduce latency and increase bandwidth. As willbe appreciated, the host SoC 12 and the memory SoC 22 may employ ascalable memory system protocol when controlling the transmissionsbetween memory components and other devices in accordance withembodiments described herein. As such, the scalable memory systemprotocol may be operating on the channels 16 between the memory device14 and the host SoC 12, as well as on channels 29 between the memorycomponents and the memory SoC 22.

In certain embodiments, the memory device 14 may also include a buffer23. The buffer 23 may store one or more packets received by the memorySoC 22. Additional details with regard to how the memory SoC 22 may usethe buffer 23 will be described below with reference to FIGS. 15-17 . Byway of example, the memory device 14 may include memory types such asNAND memories 24, Reduced-latency Dynamic random access memory (RLDRAM)26, double data rate fourth generation synchronous dynamic random-accessmemory (DDR4) 28, and the like.

In certain embodiments, the host SoC 12 and the memory SoC 22 mayperform various operations based on computer-executable instructionsprovided via memory components, registers, and the like. The memorycomponents or storage may be any suitable articles of manufacture thatcan serve as media to store processor-executable code, data, or thelike. These articles of manufacture may represent computer-readablemedia (i.e., any suitable form of memory or storage) that may store theprocessor-executable code used by the host SoC 12 or the memory SoC 22to perform the presently disclosed techniques. The memory and thestorage may also be used to store the data, analysis of the data, andthe like. The memory and the storage may represent non-transitorycomputer-readable media (i.e., any suitable form of memory or storage)that may store the processor-executable code used by the host SoC 12 orthe memory SoC 22 to perform various techniques described herein. Itshould be noted that non-transitory merely indicates that the media istangible and not a signal.

Although the following description of various aspects related to thescalable protocol is described herein as being performed with respect tothe host SoC 12 and the memory SoC 22, it should be noted that all ofthe systems and techniques described herein may be performed using anysuitable device. That is, the scalable protocol may facilitatecommunication between any two devices, such as communications betweentwo processors, two memory modules, a processor and a memory module, andthe like.

Packet-Level View of Packets in Scalable Protocol

To employ the scalable memory system protocol when transmitting requestsand responses involving the memory components, the memory SoC 22 maysend packets of data structured according to a packet level view of apacket 30 illustrated in FIG. 3 . As shown in FIG. 3 , the packet 30 mayinclude a transaction type field 32, a payload field 34, and an errorcontrol code (ECC) field 36. The transaction type field 32 may includedata indicative of the type of transmittance, a type of packet beingtransmitted, or both. The transaction type field 32 may also indicate apacket size to indicate a number of bits in the data payload and thenumber of bits in the ECC field, thereby indicating the number of bitsin the entire packet. In certain embodiments, the transaction type field32 may indicate the size of the payload field 34 and the ECC field 36 inan indirect manner. For example, the data stored in the transaction typefield 32 may serve as an index to a lookup table. The lookup table mayprovide information regarding the sizes of the payload field 34 and theECC field 36. As such, the memory SoC 22 may, in one example, receivethe packet 30 and use the data stored in the transaction type field 32as an index to a lookup table that may be stored within the memorydevice 14 to determine the sizes of the payload field 34 and the ECCfield 36.

In certain embodiments, the transaction type field 32 may specifydifferent types of packets based on whether the packet is beingtransmitted on a request bus Q or a response bus S, which may includethe channels 16, the channels 29, or the like. Generally, the requestbus Q and the response bus S may be separate, unidirectional, or commoninputs/outputs. The request bus Q generally includes q lanes, and theresponse bus S generally includes s lanes.

Example transaction type fields 32 for packets 30 transmitted on therequest bus Q may include read operations (e.g., 8uRead, 8uRead2,varRead, where u might be an 8-bit unit or a 9-bit unit or possibly anon-integer unit size of data), message data (e.g., message),read-modify-write (RMW) operations (e.g., RMW1A, RMW2A, RMW3A, RMW4A),datasets (e.g., 32uData, 64uData, 128uData, 256uData), pattern writeoperations (e.g., 8uPatternWrite, 16uPatternWrite), write-with-enableoperations (e.g., 8uWriteWithEnables, 16uWriteWithEnables), writeoperations (e.g., 8uWrite, 16uWrite, 32Write, 48uWrite, 64Write,80uWrite, 96uWrite, 112uWrite, 128Write, 256Write), and the like.Providing 32Write operations and 64Write operations may provide moreflexibility to a system designer in picking a maximum packet size. Thescalable protocol may, in one embodiment, have a limit of 256Unit, butusing a smaller maximum packet size may help with system latency. Itshould be understood that the difference between 32uWrite and 32Write isthat 32uWrite is a single fixed size and the TransactionSize is notincluded in the packet. On the other hand, 32Write includes aTransactionSize and thus can involve additional 32U chunks of data, notjust the 32U chunk included in the original request packet. Noting thelisted transaction type examples above for the request bus Q, thepackets 30 transmitted via the request bus Q may include a total of 26native transactions (e.g., 8uRead, message, RMW1A, etc.), each of whichmay be represented using a 5-bit field for global (i.e., system thatincludes numerous CPU modules and/or numerous memory device modules inwhich packets may be relayed from unit to unit) or local systems (i.e.,system that include few modules in which packets move point to pointbetween units without relaying). As such, in one embodiment, thetransaction type field 32 for a packet 30 on the request bus Q may be 5bits.

In the same manner, example transaction type fields 32 for packets 30transmitted on the response bus S may include message data (e.g.,message), datasets (e.g., 8uData, 16uData, 32uData, 48uData, 64uData,80uData, 96uData, 112uData, 128uData, 256uData), and the like. Again,noting the listed transaction type examples above for the response busS, the packets 30 transmitted via the response bus S may include a totalof 11 native transactions (e.g., message, 8uData, etc.), each of whichmay be represented using a 4-bit or 5-bit field for a local system. Assuch, in one embodiment, the transaction type field 32 for a packet 30on the response bus S may be 4 bits.

Since the 26 request bus Q transaction types and the 11 response bus Stransaction types include 5 of the same transaction types (e.g.,message, 128uData, 256uData), the total number of transaction types usedby the request bus Q and the response bus S may be 32. These 32transaction types may thus be represented in a 5-bit field. Additionaldetails regarding the transaction types will be discussed further below.

Referring again to FIG. 3 , the packet 30 may also include a payloadfield 34 and an error control code (ECC) field 36. As mentioned above,the respective size of the payload field 34 and the ECC field 36 may bedetermined based on the data in the transaction type field 32. By way ofexamples, the payload field 34 may be approximately between 45 bits and2093 bits, and the ECC field 36 may be approximately between 6 bits and37 bits. The payload field 34 may include the data representative of therequest or response being sent via the request or response bus,respectively.

The ECC field 36 may include the error control code to determine whetherthe packet 30 received by the receiving component includes any errors.As such, the error control code may include various algorithms, such asadding redundant data or parity data, to a message, such that theoriginal data may be recovered by the receiving component even when anumber of errors were introduced, either during the process oftransmission, or on storage. Generally, the error control code mayprovide the ability to detect an error within the limits of the code andindicate a further action, such as retransmitting the errant packet,when the error is detected.

Transaction Type Field

As mentioned above, the scalable protocol may use packets that have atransaction type field to perform various types of operations moreefficiently. Generally, the scalable protocol may enable an abstractedmemory architecture to employ any memory type and incorporate varioustypes of data processing using a single abstraction protocol. Keepingthis in mind, the transaction type field 32 may be a useful piece ofdata to allow the scalable protocol to perform various types of dataprocessing since the transaction type field 32 provides two distinctpieces of information. That is, the transaction type field 32 combinestwo data fields (i.e., type and size) into one for a minimum possiblebit count occupancy in the protocol.

As will be shown below, the scalable protocol may support variable sizepackets for transmission efficiency. As such, it may be useful toindicate a size of the packet to the receiving component to prevent thesystem from becoming unsynchronized. Here, the transaction type field 32may provide a single field that identifies the type of systemtransaction being performed and may implicitly define the packet size byvirtue of the transaction type. In other words, the transaction typefield 32 may indicate a type of transaction being requested by thetransmitting component and the receiving component may then determinethe size of the corresponding packet (e.g., payload field 34 and ECCfield 36) based on the specified transaction type. As such, thetransaction type field 32 may be a dual-purpose field employed by thescalable protocol to provide a bit-efficient manner to conveyinformation.

In certain embodiments, the transaction type field 32 may also indicateadditional information regarding data that may be provided in thepayload field 34. For instance, based on the value of the transactiontype field 32, transaction window information (window), addressinformation (address), levels of indirection (levels) information,message type information, raw data, and other types of information maybe ascertained to be part of the payload field 34. Details regarding theinformation that may be part of the payload field 34 will be discussedin greater detail below.

The scalable protocol may be employed in a system having one or morerequest bus Q transactions and one or more response bus S transactions.Although the request bus Q and the response bus S has been describedabove as having a 5-bit field and a 4-bit field, respectively, it shouldbe noted that the request bus Q and the response bus S may be designedto have a variety of different bit sizes. By way of example, request busQ transactions may be indicated using a 5-bit field (e.g., 00000, 00001,. . . , 11110, 11111), such that possible transaction types that may beassociated with the 5-bit field as follows (where data unit u size is 8bits):

-   01011—8uRead—8B data read operation, provide additional fields    (e.g., sub-fields within the payload field 34): Window, Address,    Levels (levels of indirection)-   01101—varRead—variable data size read operation, provide additional    fields: TransactionSize, Window, Address, Levels-   00000—Message—general message, provide additional fields Window,    MessageType, Data (Data is constrained only by the field size, e.g.    data for the Nack message type may include DataSequence,    OriginatingTransactionType, OriginatingWindow)-   01110—RMW1A—read-modify-write request with single address    incorporated, provide additional fields: TransactionSize, Window,    Address, OpCode, ImmediateData-   01100—8uRead2—two 8B data read operations, provide additional    fields: First_Window, First_Address, First_Levels, Second_Levels,    Second_Address-   10110—8uWrite—write request including 8B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 8B data-   10010—8uWriteP—write request including 8B data to be written once or    more, provide additional fields: Window, Address, TransactionSize,    Levels, 8B data-   01111—RMW2A—read-modify-write request with two addresses    incorporated, provide additional fields: TransactionSize,    First_Window, First_Address, OpCode, ImmediateData, Second_Window,    Second_Address-   10100—8uWriteEn—write with WriteEnableBits and 8B data, provide    additional fields: Window, Address, Levels, 8 enable bits, 8B data-   10000—RMW3A—read-modify-write request with three addresses    incorporated, provide additional fields: TransactionSize,    First_Window, First_Address, OpCode, ImmediateData, Second_Window,    Second_Address, Third_Window, Third_Address-   10111—16uWrite—write request including 16B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 16B data-   10011—16uWriteP—write request including 16B data to be written once    or more, provide additional fields: Window, Address,    TransactionSize, Levels, 16B data-   10101—16uWriteEn—write with WriteEnableBits and 16B data, provide    additional fields: Window, Address, Levels, 16 enable bits, 16B data-   10001—RMW4A—read-modify-write request with four addresses    incorporated, provide additional fields: TransactionSize,    First_Window, First_Address, OpCode, ImmediateData, Second_Window,    Second_Address, Third_Window, Third_Address, Fourth_Window,    Fourth_Address-   00011—32uData—extended data packet, provide additional fields:    Window, 32B data. Note that a data sequence number is not explicitly    transmitted because the extended data packets are transmitted in    order, thus, the receiver can append a sequence. If a subsequent    NACK is required, the implicit sequence number is used as a    reference.-   11000—32Write—write request including 32B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 32B data, TransactionSize-   11001—48uWrite—write request including 48B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 48B data-   00101—64uData—extended data packet, provide additional fields:    Window, 64B data. Note that a data sequence number is not explicitly    transmitted because the extended data packets are transmitted in    order, thus, the receiver can append a sequence. If a subsequent    NACK is required, the implicit sequence number is used as a    reference.-   11010—64Write—write request including 64B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 64B data, TransactionSize-   11011—80uWrite—write request including 80B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 80B data-   11100—96uWrite—write request including 96B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 96B data-   11101—112uWrite—write request including 112B data, provide    additional fields: Window, Address, Levels, 112B data-   01001—128uData—extended data packet, provide additional fields:    Window, 128B data. Note that a data sequence number is not    explicitly transmitted because the extended data packets are    transmitted in order, thus, the receiver can append a sequence. If a    subsequent NACK is required, the implicit sequence number is used as    a reference.-   11110—128Write—write request including 128B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 128B data, TransactionSize-   01010—256uData—extended data packet, provide additional fields:    Window, 256B data. Note that a data sequence number is not    explicitly transmitted because the extended data packets are    transmitted in order, thus, the receiver can append a sequence. If a    subsequent NACK is required, the implicit sequence number is used as    a reference.-   11111—256Write—write request including 256B data, provide additional    fields: Window, Address, Levels, 256B data, TransactionSize

The listed example transaction types are provided in order of theensuing packet size (barring any unintentional ordering errors) assuminga 5-bit transaction type, a 4-bit transaction size, a 3-bit window, a48-bit address, 7-bit data sequence number, and extra bits in the datafield which are specifically stated for each transaction type. Moreover,as mentioned above, the packet 30 may include the ECC field 36, whichmay be a fixed size as in conventional protocols. However, as will beappreciated, in certain embodiments, the ECC field 36 may be a variablesize as will be discussed in greater detail below.

Keeping the foregoing in mind, response bus S transactions may beindicated using a 4-bit field (e.g., 0000, 0001, . . . , 1110, 1111).If, however, the transaction type field 32 is 5 bits, the transactiontype field 32 may simply include an extra leading zero. Example 4-bittransaction types for response bus S transactions may include:

-   0000—Message—general message, provide additional fields: Window,    MessageType, Data (note that there are numerous message types such    as Completion, ReOrder, NACK, and others)-   0001—8uData—8B data response, provide additional fields: Window, 8B    data-   0010—16uData—16B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    16B data-   0011—32uData—32B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    32B data-   0100—48uData—48B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    48B data-   0101—64uData—64B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    64B data-   0110—80uData—80B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    80B data-   0111—96uData—96B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    96B data-   1000—112uData—112B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    112B data-   1001—128uData—128B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    128B data-   1010—256uData—256B data response, provide additional fields: Window,    256B data

Like the example transaction types listed above for the request bus Qtransactions, the example response bus S transactions above are listedin order of the ensuing packet size assuming a 5-bit transaction type onthe request bus Q, a 4-bit transaction type on response bus S, a 4-bittransaction size, a 3-bit window, a 48-bit address, a 7-bit datasequence number, and extra bits in the data field which are statedspecifically for each transaction type.

As shown above, each transaction type may be associated with a differentlength packet depending on individual field size assumptions. As aresult, the scalable protocol may avoid using an additional field toindicate a packet size. Conversely, in a protocol having 8-bit flits,the flit count of the request bus Q packets would be, in order oftransaction type, as follows: 8, 8, 9, 11, 13, 16, 16, 17, 18, 21, 24,25, 26, 27, 41, 57, 73, 89, 105, 121, 132, 138, 260, 266. This protocolmay then include a packet size field that may be 9 bits in size toindicate the flit count of each packet. Alternatively, the packet sizefield may be 5 bits in size to differentiate each of the 24 differentlengths and then a translation function may be used to determine anexact flit count. Unlike conventional protocols, the scalable protocolmay not employ a packet size field. Instead, the system may use atranslation function to determine a packet's size based on thetransaction type and may then save the protocol bits.

Transaction Windows

In addition to providing improved bit-efficiency with regard to errorcontrol codes, the scalable protocol may organize packets according totheir respective transaction types and transmit the organized packetsaccording to a particular order based on their respective transactiontypes. In conventional protocols, requests may be ordered according to atime at which they have been transmitted. In this case, if the firstrequest involves a high latency and the following request (i.e., secondrequest) involves a low latency, the second request may have to wait forthe first request to finish even though it may be completed more quicklythan the first request. As a result, the first request may choke thebus. In other words, the first request may prevent the bus fromresponding to relatively low latency requests, even though the lowlatency requests may be resolved more quickly than the higher latencyrequests.

To provide a more efficient manner in which to mix different types oftransaction requests within the bus, the scalable protocol may usetransaction windows to determine an order in which requests areserviced. A transaction window may be a virtual channel implementedusing a virtual address space. Each transaction window may be associatedwith a respective memory device, such as NAND and DRAM. As such, asingle transaction window may be associated with a memory or memorieshaving the same characteristics, such as latency, bandwidth,granularity, persistence, and the like.

Generally, the transaction window may provide information related to acertain set of rules of engagement for each particular transaction. Asmentioned above, the transaction window data may specify a set of lanesof a physical bus (e.g., channels 29) being used to transmit and receivepackets for particular transactions. The set of lanes specified by thetransaction window may be referred to as a virtual channel accessible tothe memory device 14. It should be noted that the channels 29 describedherein includes one or more lanes in which data may be transferred.Using the transaction window data to characterize certain features(e.g., ordering) related to the transmission or reception of packets,the scalable protocol may better manage the transmission of packetsbetween processors.

For instance, since each type of memory device has a different latency,it may be beneficial to manage the flow of bus traffic between varioustypes of memory devices 14 and the host SoC 12 based on respectivelatencies of the respective memory devices. By way of example, DRAMdevices generally have fast latencies (e.g. 50 ns from a randomrequest), while NAND devices generally have slow latencies (e.g. 500 us)with error correction after a random request. SRAM buffers have fasterlatency of 10 ns. Keeping this in mind, the scalable protocol maydesignate a transaction window for each memory device. In oneembodiment, the scalable protocol may use two fields to designate eachtransaction window: a 48-bit Address and a 3-bit Window (i.e.,addressing Windows 0 through 7). FIG. 4 illustrates a block diagram thatdepicts the two fields that designate the transaction window in thepacket 30. As shown in FIG. 4 , a transaction window field 42 and anaddress window field 44 may be part of the payload field 34. Thetransaction window field 42 may specify a designated transaction windowand the address window field 44 may specify the 48-bit addressassociated with the specified transaction window. The 48-bit address maybe a virtual address assigned to a virtual channel (i.e., window). Inone embodiment, the virtual address space may reference a physicaladdress located on a hard disk drive or some other storage device. Assuch, the memory device may have the ability to store more data thanphysically available.

In addition to the transaction window field 42 and the address windowfield 44, the packet may include a start bit 46 and a level ofindirection field 48. The start bit 46 may indicate the beginning of apacket in a stream of bits. The level of indirection field 48 may bepart of the payload field 34 and may provide a value that indicates anumber of levels of indirection the respective transaction may include.Additional details regarding the start bit field 46 and the level ofindirection field 48 will be discussed in greater detail in othersections below.

Generally, each type of memory device may be assigned to a differenttransaction window. By way of examples, DRAM0 may be assigned intoWindow0, DRAM1 into Window1, DRAM2 into Window2, NAND0 into Window3,NAND1 into Window4, and SRAM buffers and control registers into Window7.With this in mind, an example set of transactions may be sent accordingto the following sequence:

-   -   (1) Read.Window0.AddressA    -   (2) Read.Window3.AddressB    -   (3) Read.Window0.AddressC    -   (4) Read.Window0.AddressD    -   (5) Read.Window0.AddressE    -   (6) Read.Window0.AddressF    -   (7) Read.Window3.AddressG    -   (8) Read.Window0.AddressH    -   (9) Read.Window0.AddressI

As shown above, transactions 1, 3-6, 8, and 9 are part of Window0, whichcorresponds to a DRAM memory device. Transactions 2 and 7, on the otherhand, are part of Window3, which corresponds to a NAND memory device.Upon receiving the above requests, the receiving component may respondto the received requests using ordering rules established according tothe respective transaction windows specified for each transaction. Assuch, the receiving component may use the transaction windows to providea local ordering protocol between the transmitting component and thereceiving component.

In one embodiment, the ordering rules specified for a particulartransaction window may be based on the respective latency associatedwith the respective transaction window. That is, the receiving componentmay respond to the requests involving lower latencies first beforeresponding to the requests having longer latencies. Since the receivingcomponent may be aware of the latency differences between eachtransaction window, the receiving component may decide to receive thetransactions according to their window designations. As such, referringagain to the example transactions described above, the receivingcomponent implementing the scalable protocol may respond to the aboverequests as follows:

-   -   (1) Data.Window0.AddressA    -   (3) Data.Window0.AddressC    -   (4) Data.Window0.AddressD    -   (5) Data.Window0.AddressE    -   (6) Data.Window0.AddressF    -   (8) Data.Window0.AddressH    -   (9) Data.Window0.AddressI    -   (2) Data.Window3.AddressB    -   (7) Data.Window3.AddressG

As shown above, the receiving component may first respond to thelow-latency requests of Window0 before responding to the higher latencyrequests of Window3. That is, the long latency requests may betransmitted later than the short latency requests. As a result, thesystem bus servicing the requests is not hampered by the presence ofdifferent classes of memory on the same bus without adding variouselaborate protocol complications, such as adding a field with REQUESTPRIORITY. In this way, the scalable protocol provides a complex systemoperation using a minimal number of bits in a relatively simple manner.

In another example, the receiving component may employ a local orderingscheme based on a corresponding transaction window specified for eachtransaction. For the following transaction:

-   -   (1) Read8b.Window1.AddressA    -   (2) Read8b.Window2.AddressB    -   (3) Read8b.Window1.AddressC

The receiving component may first receive transaction (1) and determinewhether AddressA is available. If AddressA is busy, the receivingcomponent may store transaction (1) in a queue and wait for AddressA tobecome available. In the meantime, the receiving component may thenreceive transaction (2) and perform the read operation if AddressB isavailable. The receiving component may then receive transaction (3) andsince it is associated with the same window as transaction (1), thereceiving component may determine whether there are any orderingconflicts with regard to performing transaction (3) before transaction(1) because they are part of the same transaction window. In the samemanner, the receiving component may disregard any potential orderingconflict or the determination of any potential ordering conflict withtransaction (2) because it is part of a different transaction window. Assuch, the transaction windows may provide a more efficient way for dataoperations to be performed while different transactions are beingperformed. That is, since the transaction windows allow operations to belogically grouped with related operations or memory devices, operationsmay be performed in a variety of orders, thereby providing a flexibleway to complete transactions. In contrast, conventional protocolstypically enforce a strict order of data operations to be performedaccording to the order in which the transactions were sent even thoughdifferent transactions may be performed in a variety of orders or mayprocess transactions based on the inclusion of priority information sentin a dedicated protocol field.

In one embodiment, the scalable protocol may provide an ability toassign a minimum transaction size for each window (e.g.,Window0.Size=8Bytes, Window3.Size=128B). For example, if a minimumtransfer size for Window0 is 8 bytes, for a 48b address field, Window0may store 2{circumflex over ( )}48*8 bytes=˜2.25×1015 bytes. In the samemanner, if a minimum transfer size for Window3 is a 128 bytes, Window3may support ˜3.6×1016 bytes. As such, both Window0 and Window3 supportconsiderably more bytes than the address space implies.

Another feature associated with the transaction window includes a simplesystem-level addressability of other spaces such as Window0 SRAM andsystem control registers without creating additional commands in theprotocol. That is, SRAM and system control registers may be addressed bysimply using Window0. Prior protocols, on the other hand, may useadditional commands such as register.read and register.write to interactwith these types of memories. With the designated transaction window forthese memory types, the same read and write commands used for othermemory devices may also be used for SRAM and system control registers.That is, the read and write commands may simply point to an appropriatewindow. As such, the scalable protocol may employ fewer commands,thereby reducing the number of bits used in the protocol.

By organizing data transactions according to transaction types, multipletransaction windows may provide multiple avenues of access to the samememory type. For example, a typical DDR3 DRAM may include eight banks,and an internal bus may include eight such DRAMs. With this in mind, theeight DRAMS may be organized such that Window1 represents bank 0 of agroup of eight DDR3 DRAMs and Window2 provides access to bank 1 of thissame group. In this way, each window may specify a particular virtualaddress space of each DRAM. With this in mind, it is clear that a numberof suitable grouping methods are available since there could be anynumber of DRAMs grouped in a lock-step operation, each with pages, banksand ranks. In the same manner, NANDs may also be grouped with pages,planes, and blocks. Furthermore, multichannel devices can be furtherseparated per channel and various aggregations thereof. Generally, thegrouping options may be determined based on a complexity of logic chipdesign.

By supporting multiple transaction windows having multiple virtualaddress spaces and virtual channels, the scalable protocol may use thetransaction windows to establish predictable data ordering in a systemthat contains memories that have different latencies. As a result, thescalable protocol may support high and low priority requests withouthaving an explicit protocol field that specified how the high and lowpriority requests are ordered.

With the foregoing in mind, FIG. 5 illustrates a flow chart of a method50 for assigning transaction windows for various types of memories thatare part of the memory device 14. Although the method 50 is depicted ina particular order, it should be noted that the method 50 may beperformed in any suitable order, and thus, is not limited to the orderdepicted in the figure. Additionally, the following description of themethod 50 will be described as being performed by the memory SoC 22 fordiscussion purposes. As such, any suitable processor that iscommunicatively coupled to various types of memories may perform theoperations described in the method 50.

Referring now to FIG. 5 , at block 52, the memory SoC 22 may receive aninitialization signal from registers or other memory components storedwithin the memory SoC 22 itself. In one embodiment, the initializationsignal may be received by the memory SoC 22 upon power up or when thememory device 14 initially receives power.

At block 54, the memory SoC 22 may determine the memory types that itmay be able to access. That is, the memory SoC 22 may scan itscommunication lanes (e.g., channels 29) and identify the different typesof memories that may be communicatively coupled to the memory SoC 22.Referring back to the example memory device 14 depicted in FIG. 2 , thememory SoC 22 may determine that the RLDRAM 26, the DDR4 28, and theNAND 24 memory types are coupled to the memory SoC 22.

At block 56, the memory SoC 22 may determine the capabilities of each ofthe memory types identified at block 54. The capabilities of the memorytypes may include a capacity of the memory type, an expected latency fora read operation using the memory type, an expected latency for a writeoperation using the memory type, and the like. Other capabilities thatmay be identified by the memory SoC 22 for use in assigning transactionwindows may include read latency, write latency, bandwidth, minimum readtransaction size, minimum write transaction size, device cycle time,writeable in place or not, byte write capability or not, and the like.In certain embodiments, each different type of memory may be associatedwith a different set of capabilities. The associations between thedifferent types of memories and the different sets of capabilities maybe stored in a register of the memory SoC 22 or may be provided by eachrespective memory type.

After determining the capabilities of the memory types, the memory SoC22 may, at block 58, assign a transaction window to each memory typeidentified at block 54 based on the respective capabilities of eachmemory type. Generally, the memory SoC 22 may assign each similar memorytype to the same transaction window. That is, since each similar memorytype has similar capabilities, the memory SoC 22 may assign the memorytype to the same transaction window. For example, referring again to theexample memory device 14 of FIG. 2 , the memory SoC 22 may assign thetwo DDR4 28 memories to the same transaction window because they areidentical memory types. In the same manner, if two different memorytypes have a certain number of similar capabilities, the memory SoC 22may also assign the two memory types to the same transaction window.

In one embodiment, the memory SoC 22 may assign a memory type to acorresponding transaction window based on desired operations of thememory SoC 22. For instance, if the memory SoC 22 desires that all readoperations have at least a particular latency, the memory SoC 22 mayassign each identified memory type into a first transaction window thatmeets this latency threshold or into a second transaction window thatdoes not meet this latency threshold.

After assigning a transaction window to each identified memory type, thememory SoC 22 may proceed to block 60 store properties of eachtransaction window in a storage device. The storage device may includeany suitable device capable of storing data. As such, the storage devicemay include a local register, a table, or some other information storageunit. In this way, the memory SoC 22 may perform operations for eachmemory type according to ordering rules as described above. In somecases, the stored properties may detail certain capabilities of eachtransaction window along with other relevant information regarding theoperation of each transaction window.

Programmable Number of Levels of Indirection

Although the packet 30 has been described above as having thetransaction type field 32, the payload field 34, and the ECC field 36,in certain embodiments, the scalable protocol may include other optionalfields into the packet 30 to condition a request, such as a read, write,move, read-modify-write, and the like. One such condition may includeindicating a number of levels of indirection to apply to a request.

Levels of indirection may indicate a number of pointers between therequest and the data being requested. Given the sheer amount of dataavailable in computing systems (e.g., Big Data), data is often indexedvia multiple tables and stored in one location. That is, in a Big Datasystem, a request for a particular dataset may include a pointer thatpoints to a second pointer (e.g., link list), which points to a thirdpointer, etc. Eventually, the last pointer in the pointer sequence maypoint to an address of the requested dataset. Each pointer-to-pointerlink may be referred to as a level of indirection. The process ofidentifying the requested dataset through each level of indirection isoften referred to as “pointer chasing.”

From the perspective of the requesting component, the requestingcomponent may initially send a request for the particular dataset with afirst pointer. In response to the request with the first pointer, therequesting component may receive the second pointer. As such, therequesting component may then send a second request for the particulardataset with the second pointer. This process may continue until therequesting component receives the particular dataset. Accordingly, thetraffic on the request bus Q may involve multiple requests beforeactually receiving the dataset requested by one single initial request.

To reduce the amount of bus traffic with regard to various levels ofindirection type request, the scalable protocol may specify within adesign of an application-specific integrated circuit (ASIC), the memorySoC 22, the host SoC 12, or the like that implements the scalableprotocol an indication of a number of pointers that the requestingcomponent may receive before actually receiving the requested data. Assuch, the memory system implementing the scalable protocol may identifythe pointer chain between the original request and the location of thedata and may service the request to the requested data based on theinitial request from the requesting component. That is, one request,involving any number of levels of indirection from the requestingcomponent may result in receiving just one response that includes therequested data.

Keeping this in mind, the optional field indicating the number of levelsof indirection may include 2 bits. In one embodiment, binary 00 mayindicate no levels of indirection or that the supplied address in therequest is the actual address of the intended operand. Binary 01 mayindicate 1 level of indirection or that the data at the locationspecified by the address within the request is actually the address(e.g., final address) of a pointer and the intended operand address iscontained in that pointer. For example, in a read request having 1 levelof indirection, the actual function performed by the requestingcomponent may first include reading the contents of an address containedin the request. In this example, the content of the address may beAddress2. The memory system implementing the scalable protocol may thenread the contents at the memory location of Address2, and the content ofthe memory location of Address2 is supplied as the result of the readrequest.

In the same manner, binary 10 may indicate 2 levels of indirection.Here, the supplied address may point to Address2, which may be apointer. That is, the Address2 may include a pointer that points toAddress3. The data content at Address3 may then be supplied to therequesting component as the result of the read request.

Binary 11 may indicate 3 levels of indirection. As such, the suppliedaddress may point to Address2, which may point to Address3, which maypoint to Address4, which may include the data content. The memory systemimplementing the scalable protocol may provide the data content to therequesting component as the result of the read request.

In the instance of a write request, the process performed by the memorysystem implementing the scalable protocol may be the same as thedescribed read example. For instance, with an indirection level fieldset to binary 11, the memory system may perform a write operation byfirst reading an address of the write request (e.g., Address2). Knowingthat the indirection level field is 11, the memory system may continueto read the content of Address2, which may refer to Address3. The memorysystem may then read the content of Address3, which may refer toAddress4. The memory system may then write the data of the write requestinto the memory of Address 4. As such, in this example, the writerequest may include 3 reads before the write, but each of the 3 readswere initiated by a single write request. Although the indirection fieldhas been described as having two bits, it should be noted that theindirection field may include any number of bits, to indicate any numberof levels of indirection.

As mentioned above, the levels of indirection may be specified withinthe level of indirection field 48 of the payload field 34, asillustrated in FIG. 4 . The number of levels of indirection specifiedwithin the level of indirection field 48 corresponds to a number oflevels of indirection that the memory system may expect to encounterwhen retrieving the contents of the memory location.

In one embodiment, the number of bits (e.g., size) used by the level ofindirection field 48 may be determined based on a preference provided bythe host SoC 12. For instance, upon power up, the host SoC 12 maydiscover the memory SoC 22 and determine that the memory SoC 22 isoperating using the scalable protocol described herein. As such, thehost SoC 12 may determine a maximum number of levels of indirection thatit may be able to accommodate without compromising its performance. Themaximum number of levels of indirection may be determined based on thewrite and/or read latencies of the host SoC 12 or other operatingparameters of the host SoC 12. If, for example, the host SoC 12determines that the maximum number of levels of indirection is 3, it mayspecify to the memory SoC 22 to use a 2-bit field for the level ofindirection field 48. In some instances, the host SoC 12 may not have apreference with regard to operations involving any number of levels ofindirection. In this case, the host SoC 12 may specify to the memory SoC22 not to include the level of indirection field 48.

When preparing the packet 30 to transmit, the memory SoC 22 maydetermine the cause for the packet 30 to be transmitted. As such, thememory SoC 22 may determine what software command was used for thetransfer of the packet 30. The software command that generates thepacket may correspond to a command to look up a pointer of a pointer,for example. The memory SoC 22 may interpret this command as having twolevels of indirection and thus may provide a 10 binary value in thelevel of indirection field 48 when preparing the packet 30 fortransmission.

The levels of indirection may be useful for various types of operations.By way of example, arrays of arbitrary dimensions may use levels ofindirection to assist requesting components identify the content oftheir respective requests without adding unnecessary traffic to therespective bus. For instance, a 3-dimensional array may use threepointers to access data. Records of some defined structures may usepointers. One example of such a record may include link lists that havea head and tail pointer for every structure in the list. For linkedlists, the abstraction of levels of indirection may enable the parsingof the link list to occur more efficiently. That is, by knowing anaddress in which to start and that the requested data is located at adestination that is the 8th element of the list or involving 8 levels ofindirection, the memory system may retrieve the requested data or the8th element of the list using the single request provided by therequesting component. Here, the memory system may parse each of the 8levels of indirection to determine the location of the requested data.Upon identifying the location of the requested data, the memory systemmay provide the requesting component the requested data, thus limitingthe bus traffic to one request from the requesting component and oneresponse from the location of the requested data.

Not Acknowledging Received Packets

Another technique for reducing bus traffic may include not acknowledgingreceived packets. That is, in conventional protocols, each packet thathas been received by a recipient component may send an acknowledgmentpacket back to the transmitting component. Since the vast majority oftransmitted packets are received by the corresponding recipientcomponent, sending acknowledgment packets may add to the traffic on therespective bus without providing much of a benefit.

For instance, if an acknowledge bit is sent in response to receivingevery successful packet, and considering that the transmissions have aBit Error Rate (BER) of 1e-12, which is common in very high speedinterfaces, a large number of unnecessary bits are transmitted toindicate that each packet has been received. Keeping this in mind, andassuming that an average packet includes 100 bits and that the averagepacket error rate is approximately 1e-10, the recipient component maytransmit an acknowledge bit indicating success for 1×1010 packets and 1packet indicating an error. Effectively, the recipient component mayhave sent about 1×1010 bits to indicate one error.

To reduce the amount of bits flowing within a bus, the recipientcomponent may not send an acknowledgment packet for every receivedpacket. Instead, the transmitting component may assume that the packetsent has been received unless otherwise notified by the recipientcomponent. Examples of not sending acknowledgement packets for eachreceived packet are illustrated in FIGS. 6 and 7 . Referring to FIG. 6 ,the request bus Q may send a read request of 2 kilobytes. Upon receivingthe read request, the response bus S may transmit a packet indicatingthat the 2 KB message is ready for reading. The request bus Q may thenretransmit the read request, which may cause the response bus S to sendthe requested data in different packets. As shown in FIG. 6 , uponreceiving each packet of the data, the request bus Q does not send anacknowledgement packet indicating that the packet was receivedsuccessfully. Here, since the request bus Q may be operating with highlatency read operations, the response bus S may include two stages forthe operations. That is, the response bus S may indicate that themessage is ready and then the response bus S may send the correspondingdata related to the read request.

In the same manner, high latency direct memory access subsystems mayemploy a one stage response for various write operations. For instance,FIG. 7 illustrates an example in which a read-modify-write request istransmitted on the request bus Q and responded with a message that theread-modify-write request is complete.

Keeping the foregoing in mind, the recipient component may still receivepackets that have errors. As such, the recipient component may notifythe transmitting component that the packet has not been received or thatthe received packet contains an error by sending a NOT_ACKNOWLEDGEpacket to the transmitting component. In addition to indicating that thesent packet has not been received, the NOT_ACKNOWLEDGE packet mayindicate a most recent known-to-be-good bus transaction. As such, whenan error is detected via an ECC subsystem, the packet having the errorshould be re-transmitted. The recipient component may identity thetransmitting component of the most recent successful bus transaction asa reference to so that a retransmission can occur.

In certain embodiments, the scalable protocol may use 4 relevant fieldsto indicate to a transmitting component the identity of the lastknown-to-be-good bus transaction. The relevant fields include a window,an address, a transaction, and an optional data sequence number. Thesefour fields may identify any request/response in the system. In certainembodiments, an additional ECC field may be used to detect an error inthe transmission (e.g., a code which is guaranteed to detect thepresence of 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 random errors in the transmission packet,also known as an HD6 code, as will be described in more detail below).

Upon detecting an error, the recipient component may send aNOT_ACKNOWLEDGE message to the transmitting component. The size of thispacket may be many possible field sizes. For instance, theNOT_ACKNOWLEDGE message may be a 4-bit transaction type, a 3-bit window,a 48-bit address, a 7-bit data sequence number, and a 5-bit originaltransaction type for a sum of 67 bits. Then a 15-bit ECC field may beadded, thereby bringing the total to 82 bits. Referring back to theexample above, 82 bits is significantly lower than the 1×1010 bits sentfor indicating one error in 1×1010 packets, and thus is a more efficientway to indicate address error packets. It should be noted that the datasequence number mentioned above may identify the erroneous packet.Additional details regarding the data sequence number and how it may begenerated will be discussed below with reference to FIGS. 12-14 .

Upon detecting the error in the system, the transmitter component shouldretransmit the data. However, since there is some latency in detectingthe error, the transmitting component may have already transmitted otherpackets before the recipient component determined that an error waspresent in a received packet. Since the scalable protocol includesvariable packet sizes sent using data packing techniques describedabove, a previous transmission error could cause the recipient componentto have a wrong packet length, and hence misinterpret every data packetafter the packet containing the error. As such, the receiving componentmay indicate to the transmitting component an identity of the mostrecent known-to-be-good bus transaction to the recipient component. Thetransmitting component and receiving component may then return to apoint at which the packet in error has been received and prevent anyaction from occurring on the potentially erroneous packet and packetswhich follow it.

Due to this rule of referencing the last known good bus transaction, therecipient component may accurately indicate to the transmittingcomponent the correct point at which a retransmission may occur.However, the recipient component may incorporate one exception for theabove rule when there has been no good transaction (e.g., the firsttransaction since power-on or reset was unsuccessful). In this case, therecipient component may populate all fields with 0's, such that allelements of the system will interpret the field of 0's as a “firsttransaction.”

As mentioned above, the scalable protocol may include an optional datasequence number field. This field may support transactions that aredesired to be larger than a largest response packet supported by theprotocol. For example, consider a minimum transaction in a Window asbeing 128 bytes and another field called Size that dictates a size of atransaction, the total transaction size may be determined as2{circumflex over ( )}Size*windowMinTransactionSize. If Size is a 3-bitfield, the maximum transaction could be 2{circumflex over( )}7*128=16,384 bytes. To prevent any bus from being tied up too longby one request, the largest single packet supported by the protocol maybe 128B of data. Hence, the 16,384 byte transaction may be satisfied by128 data packets of 128B each. In one embodiment, the optional datasequence number field may include 7 bits that reference any one of these128 data packets. In this manner, if a NOT_ACKNOWLEDGE message isissued, the NOT_ACKNOWLEDGE message may correctly identify an exactpoint at which the transmission became unsuccessful. In anotherembodiment, the minimum TransactionSize of 8B, for TransactionSize 0through 15, may be 8 bytes, 16 bytes, 32 bytes, 48 bytes, 64 bytes, 80bytes, 96 bytes, 112 bytes, and 128 bytes, as opposed to 2^(N) bytes toconserve bits on the lower end.

Data Packing

Keeping the foregoing in mind, to provide flexible communication buses,the scalable protocol may employ data packing techniques whentransmitting packets using any type of bus communication. Generally,since packet sizes are determined based on the type of request orresponse being sent, the data being sent, the operations beingrequested, etc., it may be difficult to anticipate what type of datachannels to use before knowing more details regarding the packet. Assuch, the scalable protocol may be designed to maximize the use of theavailable channels by packing the data packets being transmittedtogether without padding each individual packet with zeros, as done withconventional protocols. As used herein, the term “without padding” meansthat between the transmission of data packets, zeros (i.e., bits havingthe value of zero) are not transmitted across a respective channel.Instead, the next scheduled packet ready to be transmitted will betransmitted on the clock cycle immediately after the previous packet istransmitted.

For example, consider a request bus Q that includes 10 signal lanes anda response bus S that includes 8 signal lanes. The present exampleassumes that there is no data encoding and that the transactions includeonly simple bit transmissions (i.e., no symbol transmissions). If thesizes of occupancy on the Q bus are: 4.3, 7.3, 9.7, 13.5, 14.3, 14.9,20.0, 20.1, 21.6, 33.0, 36.2, 58.8, 65.2, 105.4, 110.5, and 123.0, aconventional protocol may pad the values having fractional componentsassociated with them. That is, the conventional protocol may add zerosto the remaining portion of each fractional value such that the sizes ofoccupancy on the Q bus become 5, 8, 10, 14, 15, 15, 20, 21, 22, 33, 37,59, 66, 106, 111, and 123, respectively. In some cases as many as 9zeros may be added to the transmission, which may adversely impact anoverall bus utilization efficiency because the transmitted zeros are nottruly representative of data being transmitted. In this manner, thesezeros utilize the bus without conveying information, thereby reducingthe bus utilization efficiency.

In one embodiment, instead of padding the data being transmitted, thescalable protocol may allow requests to be packed together. The bussignal is thus left without padded zeros. For example, FIG. 8illustrates a lane packing example 61 in which the scalable protocolpacks two 18-bit requests together. Referring to FIG. 8 the scalableprotocol may regard transmissions as symbols instead of bits. In theexample of FIG. 8 , one bit may represent one symbol. Since the bus 62in FIG. 8 includes 12 lanes (i.e. may transmit 12 bits in one flit), thescalable protocol may transmit the two 18-bit requests by packing therequests together. That is, a second 18-bit request 66 may betransmitted immediately after a first 18-bit request 64. As such, thetransmission bus includes no wasted bits (e.g., padded zeros).

In certain embodiments, to ensure that the receiving component canidentify the start of a new packet in the packed lane, the transmittingcomponent may start each new packet 30 with a start bit, which may bespecified in the start bit field 46, as mentioned above. As such, whenthe receiving component receives the packed data packets as a stream ofbits, it may identify the start of each packet based on when the startbit is detected. With this in mind, each packet that is transmitted mayinclude a start bit (e.g., value of 1) to indicate the presence of a newpacket. In this way, when a receiving component receives the packetspacked together, it may identify the beginning of each new packet,determine the transaction type of the packet based on the transactiontype field 32, the transaction window based on the transaction windowfield 42, the address for the operation based on the address field 44,the number of levels of indirection based on the level of indirectionfield 48, and the error checking code based on the ECC field 36.

With this in mind, FIG. 9 illustrates a flow chart of a method 70 forgenerating a packet for transmission, such that the packet can betransmitted using the lane-packing scheme described above. For thepurposes of discussion, the following description of the method 70 willbe discussed as being performed by the memory SoC 22 (i.e.,transmitting/requesting component), but it should be understood that anyprocessor that is part of the memory device 14 may perform theoperations described in the method 70.

Referring now to FIG. 9 , at block 72, the memory SoC 22 may receive anindication of a data operation to be transmitted. The data operation mayinclude a message to be sent, a read operation, a write operation, orthe like. At block 74, the memory SoC 22 may identify a transaction typethat corresponds to the data operation. In certain embodiments, thesoftware requesting that the data operation be performed may specify thetransaction type. Alternatively, the memory SoC 22 may receive a commandfrom the software and determine the corresponding transaction type froma look-up table or a storage unit locally accessible by the memory SoC22. That is, the memory SoC 22 may consult a look-up table that mayinclude a number of transaction types indexed according to a number ofpossible data operations that may be requested.

At block 76, the memory SoC 22 may determine a transaction window basedon the memory type associated with the requested data operation. Thatis, the memory SoC 22 may determine what type of memory will be accessedwhen performing the data operation and determine a correspondingtransaction window based on the type of memory using a look-up table orthe like. In addition to the transaction window, the memory SoC 22 maydetermine a memory address that refers to a location of data related tothe data operation and the transaction window. For example, for a readoperation, the address may refer to the location of the data that is tobe read from a specified memory.

At block 78, the memory SoC 22 may determine a number of levels ofindirection that corresponds to the requested data operation. Asdiscussed above, the number of levels of indirection may be specified bythe data operation itself or by the software requesting that the dataoperation be performed.

At block 80, the memory SoC 22 may generate an error control code (ECC)value for the packet 30. The ECC value may be used by the receivingcomponent to ensure that the packet 30 is received without error. Assuch, the memory SoC 22 may first determine an appropriate error controlcode (ECC) algorithm to use to encode the packet 30. In one embodiment,the software application requesting the transmission may specify the ECCto algorithm use. Alternatively, the host SoC 12 or the memory SoC 22may specify a particular ECC algorithm to use to encode and decode allof the transmitted and received packets. In any case, the ECC value forthe packet 30 may be determined based on the bits provided in thetransaction type field 32 and the payload field 34.

After determining bit values that represent the transaction type, thetransaction window, the number of levels of indirection, and the ECCvalue mentioned above, the memory SoC 22 may, at block 82, generate thepacket 30 according to the values determined at blocks 72, 74, 76, and80. When generating the packet 30, the memory SoC 22 may initiallyprovide a 1 for the start bit field 46 to indicate to a receivingcomponent that a new packet is being transmitted. After inserting the 1in the start bit field 46, the memory SoC 22 may provide a value thatrepresents the transaction type identified at 74 in the transaction typefield 32.

The memory SoC 22 may then generate the payload field 34 of the packet30 using the transaction window and address determined at block 76 andthe number of levels of indirection determined at block 78. That is, thememory SoC 22 may enter the transaction window value after thetransaction type field 32 and into the transaction window field 42. Thememory SoC 22 may then enter the address for the data operation into theaddress field 44 and the number of levels of indirection into the levelof indirection field 48.

After the packet 30 is generated, the memory SoC 22 may, at block 84,transmit the packet 30 via the channels 16, the channels 29, or the likedepending on the destination of the packet 30. After the generatedpacket 30 is transmitted, the memory SoC 22 may proceed to block 86 anddetermine whether the next packet to be transmitted is ready fortransmission. Generally, the next packet for transmission may begenerated according to the process described above with regard to blocks72-82. If the next packet is ready for transmission, the memory SoC 22may proceed to block 84 again and transmit the next packet immediatelyafter the previous packet is transmitted. By transmitting eachsubsequent packet immediately after another packet is transmitted, thememory SoC 22 may transmit packets according to a packed lane scheme,which does not involve padding zeros on a bus when all of the lanes of abus are not utilized.

To better illustrate how packets may be transmitted according to thepacked lane scheme, FIG. 10 illustrates a number of packets that may betransmitted according to the packed lane scheme described herein. Asshown in FIG. 10 , the first packet 92 being transmitted on the bus 62includes a start bit (1), 5 bits for the transaction type field 32, 45bits for the payload field 34, and 6 bits for the ECC field 36.Immediately after the first packet 92 is transmitted, the second packet94 is transmitted on the bus 62. As such, in bit lane 9 at bit time 3,immediately after the last bit of the ECC field 36 of the first packet92, a start bit (1) is present. Moreover, the remaining bit lanes (i.e.,bit lanes 10-15) include data associated with the second packet 94.

In contrast to other packet transmission schemes, none of the bit lanesof the bus 62 are padded with zeros or not utilized for the transmissionof a packet. That is, in other packet transmission schemes, since thefirst packet 92 occupied just 9 bit lanes of the available 16, theremaining bit lanes (i.e., bit lanes 10-15) would be padded with zerosand the second packet 94 would be transmitted beginning at bit time 4.In this way, the memory SoC 22 may maximize the efficiency of the busutilized for sending packets.

It should be noted that there are still instances when the memory SoC 22may still transmit zeros between sending packets. For instance,referring back to block 86 of FIG. 9 , if the next packet is not readyfor transmission, the memory SoC 22 may proceed to block 88 and transmita zero in the next available bit lane. That is, since the bus 62operates continuously, the memory SoC 22 may not be able to stall thebus 62 and thus may transmit zeros on the bus 62 until the next packetis ready for transmission. As such, after the memory SoC 22 transmits azero along the bus in the next available bit lane, the memory SoC 22 mayreturn to block 86 and again determine whether a next packet is readyfor transmission. This scenario is also illustrated in FIG. 10 .

Referring again to FIG. 10 , after the second packet 94 is transmitted,the memory SoC 22 may not have another packet ready for transmission. Assuch, at bit time 8, the memory SoC 22 may begin transmitting zerosuntil the third packet 96 is ready for transmission. As such, the memorySoC 22 may transmit zeros on bit lanes 6-15 at bit time 8 until thethird packet 96 is ready for transmission at bit time 9. To ensure thatthe receiving component may not misinterpret the zeros padded in the busas data, the receiving component may continuously receive the bits fromthe memory SoC 22 and determine that a valid packet is being transmittedafter receiving a one or the start bit of the next packet.

In certain embodiments, if another packet is not ready for transmission,the memory SoC 22 may power down the bus 62 until the next packet isready for transmission. In this case, the memory SoC 22 may conserveenergy used to power the bus 62 when the bus 62 is not being utilized totransmit packets.

To illustrate the efficiency in transmitting packets using thelane-packing scheme, the following example is presented. A transmissionsequence on a 10-lane bus may include the following bus activity: 73bits, then 652 bits, then 73 bits, then 652 bits. This group of 4requests includes a total of 1450 bits, which includes exactly 145signal intervals (formally called Unit Intervals or UI) on the bus withno wasted bits. A UI may refer to one clocked group of data including acertain number of bits. For instance, on an 8-bit bus or an 8-lane link,one flit of data transmitted via the 8-lane link may correspond to oneflit. The one flit may then be referred to as one UI including 8 bits ofdata. As such, the UI may be used to evaluate an efficiency in which abus is being utilized. That is, the UI occupancy of a packet iscalculated by dividing the packet bit counts (including StartBit,transaction type field 32, payload field 34, and ECC field 36) by thebus width of 8b. As such, if the 8-lane link is used to send 6 bits ofdata, the UI is 0.75 ( 6/8).

Keeping the foregoing in mind, the example presented below assumes thefollowing conditions are present: a ECC Hamming Distance 3, thetransaction type field 32 includes 5 bits on both the request bus Q andthe response bus S, the dataSequenceNumber is 7 bits, a 8-bit unit size,a 4-bit transactionSize, a 3-bit Window, a 48-bit address, 2-bitlevelsOfIndirection, a 24-bit RMWopcode+data, a 4-bit messageType. Withthese sizing assumptions, 11 sample transaction types, which may appearon the response bus S, may include packet sizes of 79b, 83b, 144b, 273b,401b, 530b, 658b, 786b, 914b, 1043b and 2067b. These packet sizesinclude the transaction type field 32, the payload field 34, and the ECCfield 36, but excludes the StartBit mentioned above. In a conventional8b bus, zero paddings would be added to bring each packet up to an even8b boundary, and no StartBit would be required. As such, the number ofbus flits, or the number of Unit Intervals, used to transmit these 11transaction types after adding the zero padding will respectively be 10(79/8), 11 (83/8), 18 (144/8), 35 (273/8), 51 (401/8), 67 (530/8), 83(658/8), 99 (786/8), 115 (914/8), 131 (1043/8), and 259 (2067/8). Thatis, for the first packet of 79 bits, one zero will be padded onto thelast 8 bits of the packet, such that 10 8-lane links will be employed tosend the 79-bit packet.

However, using the techniques described herein, such as adding theStartBit and packing the responses together, the number of UIs used totransmit the same packets is respectively 10 (80/8), 10.5 (84/8), 18.125(145/8), 34.25 (274/8), 50.25 (402/8), 66.375 (531/8), 82.375 (659/8),98.375 (787/8), 114.375 (915/8), 130.5 (1044/8), and 258.5 (2068/8). Assuch, the average savings for randomly selected packet sizes is 0.5 UIper transaction, hence the bit savings grows as the number of lanes isincreased. This example is indicative of any width of the request bus Qor the response bus S, whether they are equal or unequal widths on thetwo buses. To enable the scalable protocol to pack the lanes asdescribed above, the host SoC 12 or any other receiver may use thefollowing transmission/receiving scheme: receive the packet 30, parsecontents of the packet 30 to identify the transaction type, size of thepayload, and a location of the ECC field 36 within the packet 30, verifya correctness of the packet 30 based on the ECC, and then act upon thetransmission with certitude.

In this manner, a received transmission packet may be captured in itsentirety into a receiver buffer (e.g., the buffer 23) before itscontents are parsed. Moreover, the receiver may not use the receivedpacket unless the packet is verified as error-free. The buffer 23 may beoperated as a first-in-first-out (FIFO) with an added ability forselective flushing in the event that a transmission error is detected.The scalable protocol may include a variable bit length ability forpulling data out of the buffer 23 and for packet bit shifting. Asdiscussed above with reference to FIG. 3 , the beginning of the packet30 may include the transaction type field 32, which may specify a packetsize based on the transaction type indicated in the transaction typefield 32. As such, the transaction type field 32 includes informationthat the scalable protocol may use to determine a packet size includingthe size and relative location of the ECC field 36 within the packet 30.After the ECC is checked, the receiver employing the scalable protocolmay determine whether the packet 30 is error-free. If the packet isdeemed error-free, then the receiver may know that the transaction typewas properly decoded and that the packet size was interpreted correctly.The receiver may then proceed onward to the next packet receivedimmediately after the recently parsed packet. This scalable protocol maybe used with any bus variations, whether full or half duplex, regardlessof sizes, lengths, encoding/decoding methods, and the like. Additionaldetails of a process that occurs after the receiving component receivesthe packets packed according to the lane packing scheme will bediscussed with reference to FIG. 11 below.

For reference, the scalable protocol may include transmissions that varyin length. That is, on the request bus Q, the scalable protocol may use16 different lengths. For example, the request bus may include lengthbit counts of 43, 73, 97, 135, 143, 149, 200, 201, 216, 330, 362, 588,652, 1054, 1105, and 1230 with no padding to create any particularoptimized length, such as all being increments of 8 or such. In the samemanner, the response bus S may include 8 different lengths, such aslength bit counts of 33, 42, 85, 101, 167, 297, 555, and 1069, againwith no padding.

Parsing Packets for Data Packing

As mentioned above, the scalable protocol may be designed to facilitatea maximum bit efficiency. As such, in certain embodiments, the packet 30may have an arbitrary size that does not correspond to an integermultiple of the utilized physical bus. The transmission of arbitrarilysized packets maintains bit efficiency by packing the packets tightlytogether, such that each succeeding packet is transmitted immediatelyafter the preceding packet without padding either packet with zeros.However, for the receiver (e.g., host SoC 12) to determine where thefirst packet ends and the second packet begins, the receiver mayimplement certain techniques described herein for parsing the receivedpackets. In certain embodiments, the scalable protocol may specify aparsing method for the receiver to employ on received packets. Thisparsing method may include shift operations, error detection, and buffermanagement as pipelined operations at the head of the logical operationsutilized in a system implementation.

Keeping the foregoing in mind, an example of a physical bus of 8 bitsunidirectional in the ingress directions and 8 bits in the egressdirections, full duplex, is described below to clarify certain aspectsof the parsing method. In this example, one flit is considered to be oneunit interval of data being present on a bus. That is, one flit mayinclude 8 bits of data being transferred via the bus. Moreover, thesmallest packet with Address 36b, Window 3b, and Hamming Density (HD6)error coverage of 59 bits may include a 5-bit Transaction Type, a 41-bitdata payload, and a 13-bit ECC. Assuming that an endless stream ofsimilarly sized small packets may be packed together, leaving no bitgaps, the transmission may reflect the following sequence, starting fromlane 0 and going to lane 7 for a first packet being transmitted: (name.0 means bit 0 of that field)

flit 1 TT.0 TT.1 TT.2 TT.3 TT.4 D.0 D.1 D.2 flit 2 D.3 D.4 D.5 D.6 D.7D.8 D.9 D.10 flit 3 D.11 D.12 D.13 D.14 D.15 D.16 D.17 D.18 flit 4 D.19D.20 D.21 D.22 D.23 D.24 D.25 D.26 flit 5 D.27 D.28 D.29 D.30 D.31 D.32D.33 D.34 flit 6 D.35 D.36 D.37 D.38 D.39 D.40 ECC.0 ECC.1 flit 7 ECC.2ECC.3 ECC.4 ECC.5 ECC.6 ECC.7 ECC.8 ECC.9 flit 8 ECC.10 ECC.11 ECC.12

The second packet may then be set starting with flit 8, lane 3, asfollows:

flit 9  TT.0 TT.1 TT.2 TT.3 TT.4 flit 10 D.0 D.1 D.2 D.3 D.4 D.5 D.6 D.7flit 11 D.8 D.9 D.10 D.11 D.12 D.13 D.14 D.15 flit 12 D.16 D.17 D.18D.19 D.20 D.21 D.22 D.23 flit 13 D.24 D.25 D.26 D.27 D.28 D.29 D.30 D.31flit 14 D.32 D.33 D.34 D.35 D.36 D.37 D.38 D.39 flit 15 D.40 ECC.0 ECC.1ECC.2 ECC.3 ECC.4 ECC.5 ECC.6 flit 16 ECC.7 ECC.8 ECC.9 ECC.10 ECC.11ECC.12

The third packet may then start in flit 16, lane 6, as follows:

flit 16 TT.0 TT.1 flit 17 TT.2 TT.3 TT.4 D.0 D.1 D.2 D.3 D.4 flit 18 D.5D.6 D.7 D.8 D.9 D.10 D.11 D.12 flit 19 D.13 D.14 D.15 D.16 D.17 D.18D.19 D.20 flit 20 D.21 D.22 D.23 D.24 D.25 D.26 D.27 D.28 flit 21 D.29D.30 D.31 D.32 D.33 D.34 D.35 D.36 flit 22 D.37 D.38 D.39 D.40 ECC.0ECC.1 ECC.2 ECC.3 flit 23 ECC.4 ECC.5 ECC.6 ECC.7 ECC.8 ECC.9 ECC.10ECC.11 flit 24 ECC.12

Keeping the three example packets illustrated above in mind, incomingbits may be placed into a receive FIFO once received by the receiver.Since in the above example there are 8 lanes, the bits may be moved 8 ata time. However, since the incoming bus may be extremely fast (e.g., toofast to cycle the FIFO), the FIFO may also be made to be considerablywider and the data may be sent to each successive 8b width of FIFO insuccession until reaching the last unit of width. At that time, the FIFOaddress is incremented in accordance with usual FIFO operations and thefill begins again at FIFO lanes 0-7, then 8-15, etc. until the last unitof width is received again. This allows slower logic to keep up withvery fast serializer/deserializer (SERDES) components (e.g., 40 Gb/sSERDES has a unit interval of 25 ps). If a logical clock of 2 GHz isused, the FIFO may be 20× the 8-bit lane width or 160 bits wide. Assuch, the ECC logic could naturally be built in 160-bit blocks using XORgates for each block (e.g., block 0 processes bits 0 through 159, block1 processes bits 160 through 319, etc., such that the total number ofECC blocks may be 14, where each ECC block may include a differentinterconnection of 2-input XOR gates).

Since each of the three packets described above are transmittedsuccessively, and since the arrival of bits to a receiver does notinclude any framing information, it is the responsibility of thereceiving circuitry (e.g., host SoC 12) to first determine the length ofthe packet so that the packet can be properly framed. Referring again tothe example above, the receiver may first receive the 160-bit valueimmediately available from the FIFO. In the particular example describedabove, the entire first packet resides within that 160-bit zone.

As mentioned above, the first part of the packet 30 may include thestart bit field 46 indicating the beginning of the packet 30. The nextpart of the packet 30 may include the transaction type field 32, whichmay include a value of 0 through 31. The value of the transaction typefield 32 may be used to index a table that indicates a size of the datapayload and the size of the ECC (in bits). In certain embodiments, thereceiver may use a simple logic function for the same purpose. Althoughit is not known immediately that all of the received bits are errorfree, the receiver may initially assume that they are to use thetransaction type specified in the transaction type field 32. Thereceiver may then, in a pipeline stage, check the ECC to determinewhether the received packet is error free. In one embodiment, to checkthe ECC, the transaction type of the transaction type field 32 and thedata payload of the payload field 34 may be examined in the ECCblock(s), such that the incoming ECC bits are provided to all ECCblocks. In one embodiment, the ECC block may check the ECC using ascalable error control code algorithm that employs a Hamming Distancealgorithm, for example. For example, the ECC block may employ an errorcontrol code algorithm having a Hamming Distance of 6 (HD6). As such,the ECC block may provide an error coverage of 59 bits (5bTransactionType, 41b data payload, 13b ECC). That is, the ECC block mayprovide 59 known-to-be-correct bits. Additional details regarding thescalable error control algorithm and algorithms using a Hamming Distancewill be described in greater detail below.

After the receiver verifies that the packet is error-free, the receivermay then know with certainty that the transaction type value was correctand hence the receiver may have the proper framing of the receivedpacket. The 59 known-to-be-correct bits may then be forwarded to thenext pipeline stage for further packet processing (i.e., determine theexact request being made and process the request.) After determiningthat the 59-bit first packet is correct and after forwarding the 59-bitfirst packet for further processing, the receiver may then barrel-shiftthe remaining 101 bits of the 160-bit wide FIFO to align to bit 0 andrepeat the above process.

In some circumstances, the receiver may have too little data availableto parse (i.e., everything from transaction type field 32, throughpayload field 34, and ECC field 36 should be available). Here, thereceiver may continue fetching information until it is all available.Although large packets may exceed a single 160-bit section, since thereceiver knows where ECC starts and ends from the transaction type, thereceiver may forward the ECC bits to the appropriate ECC logical blocks.Moreover, since the transaction type is at the head of the packet, thereceiver easily knows to look for it. Further, the receiver maydetermine that the payload field 34 includes everything between thetransaction type field 32 and the ECC field 36. Upon identifying thepayload field 34, the receiver may send the data payload to appropriateECC logical blocks. In certain embodiments, instead of a physical MOVE,the ECC logic may be implemented in situ at register bits thattemporarily store the data, depending on physical layout optimizationuses.

An advantage of the above-described technique includes supporting fastgeneration of an error message. As such, if the ECC detects an error, alogic signal is passed on to an egress queue manager and an errormessage is formulated and transmitted on the appropriate channel.

With the foregoing in mind, FIG. 11 illustrates a flow chart of a method100 that may be employed by a receiving component (e.g., host SoC 12)that receives packets according to the lane-packing scheme mentionedabove. Although the following description of the method 100 is describedas being performed by the host SoC 12, it should be noted that themethod 100 may be performed by any suitable receiving component thatreceives packets that have been lane packed according to the embodimentsdescribed herein.

Referring now to FIG. 11 , at block 102, the host SoC 12 may receive astream of bits via the bus 62, the channels 16, or the like. As depictedin FIG. 10 , the host SoC 12 may receive a number of bits at a timebased on the number of bit lanes available on the bus 62.

Upon receiving the stream of bits, at block 104, the host SoC 12 mayidentify a start bit of a new packet. As such, the host SoC 12 maymonitor the stream of bits until it receives a 1. For example, at bittime 0, the host SoC 12 may detect the start bit and begin parsing thefirst packet 92.

At block 106, the host SoC 12 may determine the transaction type of thefirst packet 92 based on the five bits following the start bit. Asdiscussed above, the host SoC 12 may use a look-up table or consult akey stored in a local storage component to determine the transactiontype associated with the first packet 92 based on the binary valuereceived in the transaction type field 32.

After determining the corresponding transaction type for a respectivepacket, at block 108, the host SoC 12 may identify the payload field 34and the ECC field 36 of the respective packet. That is, the transactiontype of the respective packet may indicate to the host SoC 12 a numberof bits to expect in the payload field 34 and the ECC field 36. As such,the host SoC 12 may designate a first number of bits after transactiontype field 32 to be the payload field 34 and a second number of bitsafter the payload field 34 to be the ECC field 36.

After receiving the ECC field 36 for a packet, the host SoC 12 may, atblock 110, verify whether the received packet is free of errors based onthe data provided in the ECC field 36. That is, the host SoC 12 may usethe data provided in the ECC field 36 to check the accuracy of the dataprovided in the transaction type field 32 and the data provided in thepayload field 34.

At block 112, the host SoC 12 may determine whether the respectivepacket is free of errors. If the host SoC 12 verifies that therespective packet is error free, the host SoC 12 returns to block 102and continues receiving the stream of bits. However, if the host SoC 12determines that the respective packet is not error free, the host SoC 12may proceed to block 114 and send a NOT_ACKNOWLEDGE packet back to thecomponent that transmitted the respective packet. As discussed above,the NOT_ACKNOWLEDGE packet may indicate a most recent known-to-be-goodbus transaction. As such, the NOT_ACKNOWLEDGE packet may indicate thetransaction type and the address of the last successfully receivedpacket. Since the transmitting component knows the order in which eachpacket was transmitted, the transmitting packet may then resend thepacket immediately following the packet referenced in theNOT_ACKNOWLEDGE packet.

To ensure that the transmitter component is able to resend a certainnumber of packets upon receiving the NOT_ACKNOWLEDGE packet, in certainembodiments, the transmitting component may not disregard, delete,erase, or write over sent packets from its buffer until a certain amountof time has passed after a respective packet has been transmitted. Inother words, after a packet has been transmitted, the transmittingcomponent (e.g., memory SoC 22) may wait a certain amount of time beforeit deletes the transmitted packet from its buffer component.

The amount of time that the transmitting component may wait aftertransmitting each packet before deleting it from its buffer may varyfrom packet to packet. Since each packet may include a different numberof bits, the amount of time involved for transmitting the packet andreceiving a NOT_ACKNOWLEDGE packet in response may be different for eachpacket. Generally, the amount of time that the transmitting componentmay wait may depend on a worst-case lag time for the packet to betransmitted across the bus 62, the worst-case lag time for the receivingcomponent to detect the error on the packet, and the worst-case lag timefor the transmitting component to receive the NOT_ACKNOWLEDGMENT packet.The worst-case lag time for each situation mentioned above may bedetermined based on an expected time for the operation to be performedand by adding some percentage of the expected time to the expected timeto provide for a margin of error in the expected time calculation.

Some of the factors involved in determining the expected time for thevarious operations described above to be performed include the size ofthe packet being transmitted, the number of lanes on the request bus Qand the response bus S, an amount of time for a UI of data to betransmitted across each bus, a number of pipeline delays that areexpected in the receiving component before the receiving componentverifies that the received packet is error free, a maximum depth ofqueues in the transmitting component, information related to a policy ofthe transmitting component for sending urgent messages (e.g., are urgentmessages placed in the front of the queue), and the like. It should benoted that the factors listed above are provided as examples and do notlimit the scope of the factors that may be used to determine theexpected time for the various operations to be performed.

Data Reordering Operations

Although the transaction windows may be used to indicate an order for agiven transaction window, in some instances, performing the transactionoperations according to the order of the respective transaction windowsmay be undesirable. For example, a DRAM might involve a refreshoperation, which cannot be postponed by other DRAM operations. Anotherexample may include when a NAND memory may be shuffling data to preparefor an erase operation. Here, a range of addresses associated with thedata being shuffled may be temporarily unavailable if a transactionoperation is trying to access the same range of addresses. As such, itmay be beneficial for the scalable protocol to reorder the operationsdespite a specified order according to the transaction windows.

In conventional systems, various techniques are used to allow ordering.For instance, the system may send a transaction identification with arequest operation. The response operation may then include the sametransaction identification. The transaction identification may be 8bits, which means that an additional 8 bits is sent with every requestand again with every response. As such, the overhead bits on both therequest bus Q and the response bus S may be relatively large as comparedto not sending the transaction identification with every request andresponse.

Keeping the foregoing in mind, in certain embodiments, the scalableprotocol may preserve the order specified according to the transactionwindows unless it is determined that the transaction operations may beperformed more efficiently if reordered. Once the scalable protocol(e.g., receiving component) makes this determination, it may send areorder message that may give a new relative order to a particulartransaction zone. The transaction zone may include a subset of all ofthe transaction operations being sent. Upon receiving the reordermessage, the transmitting component may reorder the transactionoperations according to a new relative order provided by the reordermessage. The new relative order may indicate an order in which eachtransaction operation may be performed with respect to other transactionoperations being performed. The respective transaction zone thatincludes the reordered transaction operations may then maintain the neworder until otherwise reordered.

As mentioned above, the receiving component may send a data reordermessage when it is desirable to depart from the natural responsesequence. In one embodiment, the receiving component may determine thatreordering may be preferred based on the transaction type indicated inthe transaction type field 32. That is, the transaction type field 32may inherently indicate that a reordering is preferred. Accompanying thetransaction type field 32 may be a 64 bit message that includes 16×4-bitorder identifiers. These identifiers may indicate the order of the next16 responses, if there are 16 responses pending.

When operating under a normal flow, the receiving component may transmitresponses in order of the commands according to a given transactionwindow. When the receiving component determines that reordering thereceived requests may be preferred, the receiving component may waituntil all of the responses, which can remain in order, are first sentbefore sending a reorder message. If the system was expecting the nextgroup of responses in the sequence 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11,12, 13, 14, and 15, the reorder message may alter anything within thatsequence. For example, a new order of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 0, 8, 9, 10,11, 12, 13, 14, and 15 may be preferred, such that each value isrepresented with a respective 4-bit value. If there are fewer than 16responses pending, the non-existent future responses may be listed inorder. That is, referring again to the example above, if 0 through 7were pending and response 0 was preferred to be delayed until after allof the others, then the order of bits 8 through 15 may remain at the endso long as 0 was provided after all of the others.

In one embodiment, the reorder message may be sent any time that a newordering is preferred. Referring again to the example above, ifresponses are sent in the order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 0 and then itis determined that the remaining items cannot be sent in the anticipatedorder, a new reorder message may be sent. Here, the very next responsewould be response 0, not response 8, because an order counter is resetto zero any time a reorder message is sent. As such, upon sending thenew reorder message, the new relative order of 0 through 15 may bedetermined according to the most advantageous ordering. In the absenceof any reorder messages, all data may be in a “natural” order of therequests received per window. In any case, by supporting data reorderingin the system without routinely transmitting request identifications orresponse identifications, the scalable protocol may save a large amountof overhead that is otherwise used in conventional protocols.

With the foregoing in mind, FIG. 12 illustrates a flow chart of a method120 that may be employed by the receiving component (e.g., host SoC 12)for reordering packets to be transmitted to the receiving component ascompared to an original order in which the packets are intended to betransmitted by the transmitting component (e.g., memory SoC 22). Thefollowing description of the method 120 will be discussed with referenceto a diagram 140 of FIG. 13 . The diagram 140 is provided to helpillustrate the operations that occur at various stages of the method120. For the purposes of discussion, the following description of themethod 120 will be described as being performed by the host SoC 12, butit should be understood that any suitable receiving component mayperform the operations described herein.

Referring first to FIG. 12 , at block 122, the host SoC 12 may receive anumber of packets from the transmitting component (e.g., memory SoC 22).The received packets may generally include operations requested to beperformed by the host SoC 12 in a preferred order. The transmittingcomponent (e.g., memory SoC 22) may send packets that correspond to dataoperations in a particular order, which may reflect a preferred order ofoperations. The diagram 140 of FIG. 13 illustrates an example originalorder of packets received by the host SoC 12 in row 142. As shown inFIG. 13 , ten packets transmitted by the transmitting component may beinitially numbered 1-10.

At block 124, the host SoC 12 may determine whether the operationsindicated in the received packets should be performed in a differentorder. That is, for example, if the host SoC 12 is unable to perform aparticular operation for some reason (e.g., requested memory address isbusy, unavailable, etc.), the host SoC 12 may instead perform a lateroperation before performing the previously requested operation. If thehost SoC 12 determines that the operations should not be performed in adifferent order, the host SoC 12 may proceed to block 126 and performthe operations of the received packets in the preferred order (e.g., astransmitted by the transmitting component).

If the host SoC 12 determines that the operations should not beperformed in the preferred order, at block 128, the host SoC 22 maydetermine a new order to perform the requested operations. To performoperations in a different order, the host SoC 12 may identify aparticular packet that corresponds to an operation that may not beperformed in the requested order. The host SoC 12 may then determinewhether any subsequent operation is dependent on the results of theidentified operation. That is, the host SoC 12 may determine whetherperforming the identified operation at a later time may cause an errorin any remaining operations to be performed. In certain embodiments, thehost SoC 12 may evaluate the transaction windows of each packet todetermine whether operations may be reordered. For instance, if an orderof have the transaction windows is as follows: Win2, Win2, Win2, Win3,Win3, Win2, and Win3, the host SoC 12 may delay the third Win2 requestto perform the first Win3 request because they refer to differenttransaction windows and thus likely operate on different memory types.Using the transaction windows of each packet, the host SoC 12 may thendetermine a new order to perform the requested operations.

After determining the new order to perform the operations, at block 130,the host SoC 12 may rename a number of packets that are received after apacket immediately preceding the packet that corresponds with theidentified operation. In one embodiment, the host SoC 12 may rename thepackets according to their current position in the queue. For instance,referring again to FIG. 13 , if the host SoC 12 identifies originalpacket 5 as a packet containing an operation that should be performed ata later time, the host SoC 12 may rename the packets after packet 4according to their current position in the queue. As such, packets 5-10may be renamed to packets 0-5 as illustrated in row 144 of the diagram140. In this manner, the remaining packets may be renamed according totheir relative position in the queue.

After renaming the remaining packets, at block 132, the host SoC 12 maygenerate a reorder message that indicates a new order in which theremaining packets will be addressed by the host SoC 12 or according tothe order of corresponding operations that will be performed by the hostSoC 12. The reorder message may be determined based on the new orderdetermined at block 128 and according to the renamed packets, asprovided in block 130. For instance, referring to the example in FIG. 13again, if the host SoC 12 determined that the original 5^(th) packetoperation should be performed after the original 7^(th) packetoperation, the reorder message may be presented as 1, 2, 3, 0, 4, 5, asshown in row 146. Row 146 indicates the new order of operation accordingto the renamed packets. For illustrative purposes, row 148 indicates theorder in which the reorder message specifies that the remaining packetoperations will be according to their original packet numbers.

At block 134, the host SoC 12 may transmit the reorder message to thetransmitting component. As such, the transmitting component may use thereorder message to adjust the order in which the response packetstransmitted from the host SoC 12 are associated with a respectiverequest packet. That is, the transmitting component may associate eachresponse packet received after the reorder message according to therenamed relative order indicated in the reorder message.

By renaming the packets after the packet that corresponds to the lastimplemented operation, the host SoC 12 may provide a reference order tothe transmitting component that is relative to the remaining responsepackets that are to be received by the transmitting component. As such,since the host SoC 12 and the transmitting component may know the orderin which packets have already been sent, the packets renamed accordingto their relative order enables the host SoC 12 to associate theresponse packets without having to send a packet identification numberwith each packet, thereby providing a more bit-efficient communicationscheme.

In circumstances where there are multiple request and response buses,the scalable protocol may determine the order in which transactionoperations are performed, as follows. If there are 4 request busesassociated with 4 respective response buses, an associated pair ofrequest and response buses may be named by the scalable protocol as achannel. As such, in one embodiment, a transaction operation may bedefined as “channel.window.address.” Here, the ordering may then bedefined as “channel.window.dataSequenceNumber.” Often times, just onedatum may be part of the transaction operation, such that the datasequence number is often unimportant to save for transaction requestslarger than a largest supported packet size. Otherwise, the scalableprotocol may follow an ordering within the channel.window. Even when twochannels are using the same window, the scalable protocol may notincorporate any ordering between them. Instead, the scalable protocolmay provide an order within each channel.window combination. As aresult, the scalable protocol may greatly simplify the operation of thesystem because channels have the possibility of asynchronous timinginter-relationships. By ordering the transaction operations according tothe channel.window, the scalable protocol keeps the ordering simple andalso reduces a number of times arbitration may be performed. Moreover,this ordering technique may also reduce a number of reorder messagesthat have otherwise been sent.

Data Reordering Operations—High Frequency

Although scalable protocol has been described as being capable ofproviding a new relative order for transaction operations being sent, itmay be difficult to incorporate this type of reordering scheme in largesystems that may have a high frequency of reordering requests. That is,if reorder messages are sent at some high frequency (i.e., above acertain threshold), it may no longer be an efficient use of time andresources to send reorder messages and reorder the transactionoperations. In other words, for some types of systems the frequency ofdata reordering could become so high that the amount of communicationsbetween the transmitting component and the receiving component maybecome inefficient. For such systems, the scalable protocol may reducebit traffic of transaction identifications even when large numbers ofreorder events are preferred.

In one embodiment, the receiving component may determine whether thecurrent reorder technique is operating inefficiently. For instance, thetransmitting component may determine a frequency at which the reordermessages are being received from the receiving component. If thefrequency is above some threshold, the transmitting component maydetermine that the current reorder scheme is operating inefficiently. Atthis time, the transmitting component may append each transactionidentification (ID) of each transaction operation to include a newfield: a request bus Q sequence number. Since the receiving componentmay know the order that requests are received, the receiving componentmay assign a round-robin sequence number to each received request (i.e.,request bus Q sequence number, Qsequence or Qseq). The request bus Qsequence number may apply to the combination of the respective channeland the respective window of each request. As such, the request bus Qsequence number may be denoted as “channel.window.Qseq,” such that Qseqmay be assigned in round robin order for each respective channel andrespective window, thereby preserving bandwidth by not transmittingknown data. For instance, if an order of requests (all on channel 0) isas follows: Win2, Win2, Win2, Win3, Win3, Win2, and Win3 and these arethe first transactions, the assigned Qseq numbers appended by thereceiver would be: 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 3, and 2 respectively. That is, eachwindow may be associated with a round robin Qseq sequence based on thereceipt of each type (i.e., channel/window) of request.

After receiving the requests and when a response is planning to be senton the response bus S, the receiving component may tag each respectiveresponse with its corresponding Qseq value. As such, the transmittingcomponent may associate each received response with its respectiverequest. As shown above, the technique described above avoidstransmitting a Qseq value on the request bus Q. By not sending the Qseqvalue on the Q bus, the scalable protocol provides an additional way inwhich to provide bit-efficient transfer.

Keeping this in mind, FIG. 14 illustrates a method 160 for reorderingoperations performed by a receiving component. Again, as mentioned abovewith regard to the method 120, the following method 160 will bedescribed as being performed by the host SoC 12. However, it should beunderstood that the following method 160 may be performed by anysuitable receiving component.

Referring now to FIG. 14 , at block 162, the host SoC 12 may determinewhether a number of reordering messages transmitted to the transmittingcomponent over some period of time exceeds some threshold. The thresholdmay be related to a declining performance of the memory device 14, anaverage number of cycles involved when performing an operation, anaverage queue depth for each requested operation, or the like.

If the number of reordering requests is not greater than the threshold,the host SoC 12 may continue sending reorder messages according to themethod 120 described above. However, if the host SoC 12 determines thatthe number of reordering requests is greater than the threshold, thehost SoC 12 may proceed to block 164. At block 164, the host SoC 12 mayadd a sequence value to each received packet in a round robin fashionaccording to the transaction window of each packet. The transmittingcomponent may store an order in which each packet has been transmitted,such that the order of transmission may correspond to the order in whicheach packet was received.

At block 166, the host SoC 12 may send response packets in an order inwhich their respective operations have been performed. The responsepackets may include the sequence value added to the received packet atblock 164. Since the transmitting component is aware of the order inwhich each packet has been sent, it may use the added sequence value toapply the response packet to the appropriate request packet. Using themethod 160 to transmit response packets, the host SoC 12 and thetransmitting component may add a sequence number to the packets that aretransmitted once across the bus 62, as opposed to keeping the sequencenumber on both transmissions. In this way, the scalable protocolprovides bit efficient data transfers by leveraging information known bythe transmitting component, such as the order in which packets weretransmitted.

In certain embodiments, in an event such as a long transaction requiringmultiple packets, the receiving component may use a request bus Qsequence number (Qseq) and a data sequence number (DataSequence) toidentify each packet when an error occurred and the pipeline may beflushed and the corresponding packets within the pipeline may be resent.For instance, if the error occurred in a packet on the response bus S, alast known-to-be-good packet received by the transmitting component mayinclude a Qseq number in it to use as reference. As a result ofemploying this technique, some of the messages are actually now shortersince a transaction type is not referenced to indicate a transaction.That is, to otherwise indicate the transaction type, the transactiontype, window, and address within a packet, up to 52 bits may be used toinclude this information. In contrast, sending the Qseq value and theDataSequence value may involve 23 bits (e.g., 16+7=23 bits), therebyfurther improving the bit efficiency in transfers.

As compared to the re-order message techniques described earlier,appending packets with a Qseq value may result in a lower overall numberof bits transmitted when the number of times that a re-order isperformed is above some frequency threshold. Although the option ofproviding a Qseq value has been described as being incorporated withinthe scalable protocol dynamically, in certain embodiments, the abilityof the scalable protocol to provide the Qseq value may be a staticchoice built into the scalable protocol at the time the SoC thatimplements the scalable protocol is designed. The type of system usingthe scalable protocol may provide information to indicate which orderingmethod may provide more bit-efficient transfers.

Keeping the foregoing in mind, in one embodiment, the request bus Qsequence number field may be an 18-bit field that may be used toidentify each transaction operation of a 4 kilobyte transaction.Although the request bus Q sequence number field has been described asan 18-bit field, the size of the request bus Q sequence number field maybe any suitable value. Generally, the size of the request bus Q sequencenumber field may be large enough to identify each transaction operationof a particular transaction and may be used to indicate an order inwhich the request or response may be performed. Although the addition ofthe request bus Q sequence number field to a respective packet mayincrease a respective size of the respective packet, the increase inpacket sizes is still more efficient than sending a transactionidentification with every request and response operation, as performedin conventional protocols. Moreover, since the addition of the requestbus Q sequence number field may be done after determining that sendingreordering messages is inefficient, the present technique is limited foruse in specific instances, as opposed to being used for everytransaction operation as in conventional protocols.

In some embodiments, when requests have an implied sequence number(e.g., for a given channel.window, the first request is 0, next is 1,next is 2, etc.), the scalable protocol may not add a request bus Qsequence number field to the transaction operation. That is, since thetransaction operations are in a natural implied order, the scalableprotocol may save bits from being sent by not transmitting the sequencenumbers.

However, when responses are preferred to flow in a different order otherthan that natural implied order, as mentioned above, the scalableprotocol may append each received transaction operation with acorresponding sequence number in the request bus Q sequence numberfield. In some cases, the sequence number may potentially use a largebit field. For example, in a window that supports NAND, a response couldrequire 0.01 seconds. Here, if the packet rate is 5×10⁻⁹, there could be5×10⁷ responses in flight, which may use 26 bits to identify each of theresponses. A more practical scenario anticipates larger transactions ofapproximately 4 kilobytes where there may be approximately 100,000outstanding transactions. Here, each transaction may be identified injust under 17 bits. To allow better performance with small transactionsand also to ensure there is no identification aliasing, the bit countmay be rounded up to 18 bits. That is, the numbers may modulo wraparound to zero and so there may be an obvious gap in the sequence thatis “alive” at any time to avoid confusion.

In any case, when providing a reordering sequence, the scalable protocolmay add a request bus Q sequence number field to a corresponding packet.As such, some of the fields described above may change. For example, onthe request bus Q, the not-acknowledge command may change such that ithas the same transaction type and the same transaction window.Previously, the not-acknowledge command may have included an address, adata sequence number, and an original transaction type. In oneembodiment, the not-acknowledge command may now have a request bus Qsequence number and a data sequence number. As a result, thenot-acknowledge command may be a smaller packet than previouslydescribed.

On the response bus S, the general message transaction type may beunchanged. However, the remaining items of the packet may change asfollows:

-   -   “Complete” message may have a transaction type, a window, a        request sequence number, and an ECC.    -   “Not-Acknowledged” (NACK) message may have a transaction type, a        window, a request sequence number, a data sequence number, and        an ECC.    -   “Message” may be unchanged, and thus may include a transaction        type, a window, 8B data, and an ECC.    -   8uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 8B data, and an ECC.    -   16uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 16B data, and an ECC.    -   32uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 32B data, and an ECC.    -   48uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 48B data, and an ECC.    -   64uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 64B data, and an ECC.    -   80uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 80B data, and an ECC.    -   96uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 96B data, and an ECC.    -   112uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 112B data, and an ECC.    -   128uData include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 128B data, and an ECC.    -   256uData may include a transaction type, a window, a request        sequence number, and 256B data, and an ECC.

As mentioned above, although the data transaction types may haveincreased in packet sizes by the amount of the request sequence number,even in systems with high performance NAND, the resulting sequencenumber may be just 16b. As such, the presently disclosed technique toreorder transaction operations for transaction operations that arereordered at a high frequency, or designed as such, may still beeconomical as compared with conventional protocols, which may add 16bits to every response. Moreover, since the presently disclosedtechnique includes a sequence number for each response, the scalableprotocol may not issue reorder messages or packets. Further, since eachtransaction operation is associated with a particular sequence number,the transaction operation may be transmitted in a round robin order toensure that known data is not transmitted.

Ordering Effort Field

As discussed above, situations arise when transaction operations in onetransaction window are preferred in order, but it may be beneficial todeviate from that order. Keeping this in mind, in addition to the twotechniques for reordering transaction operations described above, in oneembodiment, the scalable protocol may provide a flexible programmingoption for ordering transaction operations or packets in a system. Theflexible programming option (e.g., ordering effort field) may set adegree of effort that the scalable protocol should use in maintainingthe original order of transactions. That is, the flexible orderingeffort field may indicate to the scalable protocol how hard it shouldwork to ensure that the packets are transmitted in order. As such, theflexible ordering effort field may be associated with a range of valuesbetween a first value that corresponds to keeping every pack in orderand a second value that corresponds to allowing anything to bereordered.

Keeping this in mind, transaction window 0 may be used as a generalpurpose control area for memory SoC 22. As such, transaction window 0may reside in registers, SRAM buffers, cache SRAM, and other addressablecontrol features. For each transaction window, the scalable protocol mayenable configurable information that can be user programmed. Asmentioned above, one type of the configurable information (e.g.,ordering effort field) may include a degree of effort in maintainingoriginal order (i.e., ordering effort). The ordering effort field mayhave a large variation in implementations. For instance, in a 2-bitfield, the ordering effort may be characterized as follows:

-   -   00—allow re-ordering at every opportunity    -   01—allow considerable re-ordering    -   10—allow some re-ordering    -   11—allow no re-ordering, wait until resources are available

In certain embodiments, the scalable protocol may associate certainpackets with specific ordering zones. The ordering zone may indicatethat the corresponding packets are to be treated similarly. For example,requests in the same ordering zone may be expected to be in order, andif not possible to be in order, then the transmitting component (e.g.,memory SoC 22) may apply the ordering effort, as specified by theordering effort field, to determine a degree in which the requests maybe transmitted out of order.

The ordering zone may be related to a combination of a channel, a systemwindow, and a transaction window (e.g., channel.syswin.window). Channelmay be a channel number from which the request was received. Systemwindow may be an optional pair of fields that, for example, specifieswhich SoC in the system originated the request.

Keeping the foregoing in mind, a reasonable implementation of specifyingthe ordering effort in a 2-bit field assuming that a queue depth is 16for an ordering zone may be as follows:

-   -   00—allow re-ordering at every opportunity: allow result slots to        be swapped anywhere in the queue depth of 16    -   01—allow considerable re-ordering: allow result slots to be        swapped anywhere in the queue depth of 11    -   10—allow some re-ordering: allow result slots to be swapped        anywhere in the queue depth of 6    -   11—no re-ordering: allow no swapping, allow resources to idle

In certain embodiments, an ordering effort function that defines theordering effort may include additional variables such as an age of therequest. For example:

-   -   00—allow re-ordering at every opportunity: allow result slots to        be swapped anywhere in the queue depth of 16    -   01—allow considerable re-ordering: allow result slots to be        swapped anywhere in the queue depth of 8 if the request is old        and 14 if the request is young    -   10—allow some re-ordering: allow result slots to be swapped        anywhere in the queue depth of 4 if the request is old and 8 if        the request is young    -   11—no re-ordering: allow no swapping, allow resources to idle

Here, the scalable protocol may enable the requests to be designated asbeing old or young. For instance, a request may be considered to be oldif the request has existed for 7 or more request slots, while therequest may be considered to be young if the request has existed for 6or fewer request slots.

The above-listed examples illustrate a small subset of possible ways inwhich an ordering effort may be quantified in a 2-bit field. Additionaldegrees of ordering effort may be specified using a larger sizedordering effort field. In any case, the ordering effort field mayprovide the capability of simple programmability that makes orderingeffort a function that may be useful in tuning overall systemperformance. In certain embodiments, the ordering effort employed by thehost SoC 12 may be determined or specified when the host SoC 12 ispowered on. That is, the host SoC 12 may determine the type of device itis connected to or the type of industry it is designed for and determinean ordering effort accordingly.

Backpressure Function for Bus Traffic Throttling

Backpressure may refer to an amount of bus traffic on a respective buswith respect to an available capacity of the buffer 23 (e.g.,first-in-first-out (FIFO) buffer) receiving the bus traffic. As such,the backpressure of a respective bus may be considered to be high whenthe buffer 23 receiving the bus traffic is close to its depth limit.Once the buffer 23 becomes full, the receiving component in conventionalsystems may either ignore future incoming packets or accept the incomingpacket and delete a packet presently in the buffer 23. In either ofthese cases, packets may not be processed and thus the integrity of thecommunication link may be compromised.

Keeping this in mind, FIG. 15 illustrates a flow chart of a method 180for throttling back the transmission rate of requests sent from atransmitter. Again the following method 180 is described as beingperformed by the host SoC 12 for illustrative purposes but may beperformed by any suitable receiving component.

At block 182, the host SoC 12 (e.g., receiving component) may monitorthe capacity of the buffer 23 and determine whether the capacity of thebuffer 23 of the receiver is less than or equal to some threshold. Ifthe capacity of the buffer 23 is above the threshold, the host SoC 12may proceed to block 184 and continue receiving packets at the presenttransmission rate from the transmitting component.

If, however, the capacity of the buffer 23 is less than or equal to thethreshold, the host SoC 12 may then proceed to block 186. At block 186,the host SoC 12 may send a message to the transmitting component todecrease the rate at which it is sending packets. At this time, both thehost SoC 12 and the transmitting component may use the same backpressurefunction to throttle the transmittal and receipt of packets according tothe same known mathematical function. As a result, the backpressure ofthe bus traffic may be reduced to accommodate for the processing of thedata packets currently in the buffer 23, while reducing the likelihoodof losing a packet.

In one embodiment, the bus traffic may be throttled back as theoutstanding transaction count approaches a maximum window value(windowMax) and a maximum channel value (channelMax). The channelMax andwindowMax fields may be independently set by a user or the scalableprotocol. The channelMax field may correspond to a defined maximumtransmission rate. For instance, the channelMax may be set to 1×10⁹requests per second. The windowMax field may correspond to a number ofoutstanding transaction operations. An example backpressure function mayinclude linearly reducing a request rate after the windowMax orchannelMax is at 90% capacity. At that point, the transmittal rate maybe 100% at 0.900*Max and vary linearly to 0% at 0.995*Max. FIG. 16graphically illustrates how the transmittal rate may be scaled backaccording to the above-described linear function.

In addition to linearly scaling back the transmission rate, thetransmitting component may also scale back its transmissions accordingto a non-linear function. FIG. 17 , for example, illustrates onepossible non-linear curve that may be employed by the transmittingcomponent when scaling back its transmission rate. It should beunderstood that the transmitting component is not limited to employing anon-linear transmission rate according to the curve depicted in FIG. 17. In another example, the non-linear curve may include a step down curvethat incrementally scales back the transmission rate by finite steps.

In cases where just one transaction window is present on a channel, thewindowMax field may not be relevant or may be considered to be equal tothe channelMax field. In the case where there are multiple transactionwindows, different backpressure functions may be defined for eachrespective transaction window. For instance, consider the following 4examples of transaction windows that use a variety of different memorytypes as described below.

-   -   window0—control and registry    -   window1—lowest latency DRAM    -   window2—regular DRAM    -   window 3—NAND

Keeping this in mind, an example of how the backpressure function may bethrottled based on the traffic of a channel may include defining achannel max (e.g., 1×10⁹ requests per second), defining when thebackpressure function may begin (e.g., RollbackStart 0.9 p.u.), anddefining when the backpressure function may end (e.g., RollbackEnd 1p.u.). In this example, the Rollback function may apply to the variablecalled Max, which may correspond to the channel max. Generally, thechannel max corresponds to the rate at which requests (or transactionorders) are sent while the channel request rate is less than or equal to0.9*channel max (e.g., up to RollbackStart).

In the same manner, each respective transaction window may employ arespective backpressure function. For instance, the backpressurefunctions of the four example transaction windows defined above may beimplemented as follows:

window0

-   -   window0max 0.05 p.u. of max    -   window0RollbackStart 0.045 p.u. of max    -   window0RollbackEnd 0.05 p.u. of max

window1

-   -   window1max 0.9 p.u. of max    -   window1RollbackStart 0.81 p.u. of max    -   window1RollbackEnd 0.9 p.u. of max

window2

-   -   window2max 0.3 p.u. of max    -   window2RollbackStart 0.27 p.u. of max    -   window2RollbackEnd 0.3 p.u. of max

window3

-   -   window3max 0.1 p.u. of max    -   window3RollbackStart 0.09 p.u. of max    -   window3RollbackEnd 0.1 p.u. of max

As shown above, the backpressure function may gradually roll backrequest rates when there are many transaction windows (i.e., manysimultaneous processes) interacting. In any case, by performing thethrottling operations according to a function, as opposed to usingtransmitted signals, the scalable protocol may not be concerned withwhether transmitted signals are in-band or out of band. Moreover, sincethe receiving component and the transmitting component may implement thesame mathematical function without having to communicate when toimplement the function, the scalable protocol may further reduce theamount of bits transferred across each respective bus.

In certain embodiments, the backpressure function may also account forthe age of each request. For instance, if older requests are pooling ina transaction window, the receiving component may adjust the value ofthe windowMax or modify the Rollback limits for that particulartransaction window.

In yet another embodiment, the backpressure function may also accountqueue depth. That is, at power up, the memory SoC 22 may have theability to discover the capability of the module(s) connected to thememory SoC 22 based on information provided in the transaction window orthe like. Part of the capabilities may include observing a queue depthof the receiver(s) connected to memory SoC 22 and perhaps can alsodiscover the nominal packet-processing rate of a connected channel.Although the memory SoC 22 may not be able to track a receiver's queues,the memory SoC 22 may make some determinations regarding the status ofthe receiver's queues. For example, if the memory SoC 22 sends manypackets in rapid succession exceeding a packet-processing rate of thereceiving component, the memory SoC 22 may predict that a queue in thereceiver component will grow. As such, if the memory SoC 22 determinesthat the packets are being sent faster than the packet-processing rateof the receiver, the memory SoC 22 may begin to apply the backpressurefunctions described above without receiving explicit feedback from thereceiver. In other words, if the packet transmission rate exceeds thepacket-packet processing rate, the memory SoC 22 may begin to reduce thepacket transmission rate. In this way, the transmission rate may bereduced without adding messages to the channels. In some embodiments,the receiving component may send a message to the memory SoC 22 as afailsafe when the receiving component is not processing packets at itsexpected rate.

In another embodiment, the receiving component may include a systemfailsafe mechanism to indicate to the transmitting component that thebuffer 23 is about to be overrun or exceed its capacity. Here, thereceiving component may send a message similar to the not-acknowledgedmessage described above. This message may have the same effect as thenot-acknowledged message except that it may create an entry in a datalog of the transmitting component to note that a message was rejecteddue to the buffer 23 being unable to accept the packet. As such, thetransmitting component may determine a reason for the delay in bustraffic.

While the embodiments described herein may be susceptible to variousmodifications and alternative forms, specific embodiments have beenshown by way of example in the drawings and have been described indetail herein. However, it should be understood that the disclosure isnot intended to be limited to the particular forms disclosed. Rather,the disclosure is to cover all modifications, equivalents, andalternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the techniques andsystem described in the disclosure as defined by the following appendedclaims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A device, comprising: a memory system configuredto: receive a stream of bits configured to indicate a request to performone or more operations and a number of indirection steps, wherein thenumber of indirection steps corresponds to one or more bits of a datafield in the stream of bits, and wherein the number of indirection stepscorresponds to one or more pointers associated with performing the oneor more operations; parse one or more addresses of a memory arrayconfigured to couple to the memory system based at least in part on theone or more pointers; determine a location associated with the stream ofbits based on the one or more addresses; and perform the one or moreoperations on the memory array based at least in part on the location,wherein the one or more operations comprise one or more read operations,one or more write operations, or any combination thereof.
 2. The deviceof claim 1, wherein the one or more bits forming a binary numberindicative the number of indirection steps.
 3. The device of claim 1,wherein the location corresponds to the memory array.
 4. The device ofclaim 1, wherein the memory system is configured to parse the one ormore addresses by: parsing a first address of the one or more addresses;determining that the first address points to a second address of the oneor more addresses; parsing the second address; and determining that thesecond address points to the location.
 5. The device of claim 4, whereinthe memory system is configured to send the request to the memory arrayfor data stored in the location.
 6. The device of claim 1, wherein thememory system is configured to parse the one or more addresses byperforming a plurality of reads and one write using a single requestassociated with the stream of bits.
 7. The device of claim 1, whereinthe stream of bits comprises a plurality of packets.
 8. The device ofclaim 1, wherein the number of indirection steps corresponds to a numberof addresses separating a first address of the one or more addressesfrom a final address of a pointer that corresponds to the location. 9.The device of claim 1, wherein the data field comprises two bit fieldsand is indicative of one of four options that corresponds to the numberof indirection steps.
 10. The device of claim 1, wherein the number ofindirection steps in the stream of bits corresponds to a write or readlatency.
 11. A method, comprising: receiving, via a processingcomponent, a stream of bits configured to indicate a request to performone or more operations and a number of indirection steps, wherein thenumber of indirection steps corresponds to one or more bits of a datafield in the stream of bits, and wherein the number of indirection stepscorresponds to one or more pointers associated with performing the oneor more operations; determining, via the processing component, anaddress of a memory component based on parsing one or more addresses ofthe memory component, wherein the one or more addresses are parsed basedon the one or more pointers; and performing, via the processingcomponent, the one or more operations on the memory component based atleast in part on the address, wherein the one or more operationscomprise one or more read operations, one or more write operations, orany combination thereof.
 12. The method of claim 11, wherein the one ormore bits correspond to a binary number indicative of the number ofindirection steps.
 13. The method of claim 11, wherein the memorycomponent corresponds to a memory array.
 14. The method of claim 13,wherein the memory array corresponds to a multi-dimensional memoryarray.
 15. The method of claim 11, wherein parsing the one or moreaddresses comprises: parsing a first address of the one or moreaddresses; determining that the first address points to a second addressof the one or more addresses; parsing the second address; anddetermining that the second address points to a final location.
 16. Themethod of claim 11, wherein the number of indirection steps correspondsto a number of the one or more pointers between the request provided inthe stream of bits and data associated with the request.
 17. Anon-transitory computer-readable medium comprising computer-executableinstructions that, when executed, are configured to cause at least oneprocessor to perform operations comprising: receiving a stream of bitsconfigured to indicate a request to perform one or more read or writeoperations and a number of indirection steps, wherein the number ofindirection steps corresponds to one or more bits of a data field in thestream of bits, and wherein the number of indirection steps correspondsto one or more pointers associated with performing the one or more reador write operations; determining an address of a memory component basedon parsing one or more addresses of the memory component, wherein theone or more addresses are parsed based on the one or more pointers; andperforming the one or more read or write operations on the memorycomponent based at least in part on the address.
 18. The non-transitorycomputer-readable medium of claim 17, wherein the computer-executableinstructions are configured to cause at least one processor to performthe operations comprising retrieving contents of the address of thememory component based at least in part on the number of indirectionsteps.
 19. The non-transitory computer-readable medium of claim 17,wherein the computer-executable instructions are configured to cause atleast one processor to perform the operations based on a number of theone or more pointers associated with performing the one or more read orwrite operations.
 20. The non-transitory computer-readable medium ofclaim 17, wherein the number of indirection steps corresponds to anumber of addresses of the one or more addresses accessed to perform theone or more read or write operations.